The Amazing, Crazy Story of How a Man Named Pearl Accidentally Became a Brand

In my last two articles, I showed you how content marketing can help you to implement the 10th marketing fundamental (aka be memorable).

Well, today I’m going to tell you how to implement it using something besides content.

And the lesson is contained in this incredible story about a man with a unique name….

An Unexpected Goal

It was the 1980’s and Pearl Fryar wasn’t aiming for anything big.

He just wanted to win the “lawn of the month” award. That’s all.

Why? Because when Pearl (who is African-American) moved into the mostly white neighborhood in Bishopville, South Carolina, the neighbors complained.

They said they didn’t want him in their neighborhood. Their reason?
They said it was because African-Americans don’t keep up their yards.

Pearl decided, “I’ll show them!” And he did. But he did it in a very unexpected way.

He went to the local nursery and took ONE lesson on topiary gardening.

Then, armed with FREE “throw-away plants” that the nursery piled up to toss out, Pearl began experimenting with his topiary skills.

And guess what?

He won the “lawn of the month” award!

But something else happened in the process…
Pearl slowly became famous.

Professional topiary artists began to show up to see what he was doing. Pearl said they’d see what he’d done and they were amazed.

They couldn’t believe their eyes! Why?

Because Pearl was doing things that weren’t supposed to be possible.
I LOVE Pearl’s answer to them. He simply said, “No one told me it wasn’t possible.”

And something happened to his neighbors. (Remember the ones who originally didn’t want Pearl there?) They became so impressed they asked PEARL to help them with THEIR gardens!

His fame continued to grow and so did the “Pearl Fryar” brand.

People began to come and visit to see this amazing accomplishment of this man named Pearl.

And they didn’t just come by the car-ful. They began to show up by the busload!

Literally, buses on local tours began to take people to see Pearl’s work.
And Pearl welcomed them all.

People found out that this man with an amazing garden had an equally amazing heart.

The whole time Pearl continued to focus on his accidental passion: topiary gardening.
And as he did, he got better and better.

His skills became so honed and well-known that a woman at the local community college, who taught art classes, asked Pearl to come and speak to her students.

This art teacher was so impressed with who Pearl was and his great skill that she worked out for him to do a show of his work at an art museum.

Pearl shared with the class some of his powerful, simple wisdom.
He told them, “He who wants to rise above the average must do beyond the average.”

But it gets even better.

The man who just wanted to win the “lawn of the month” award was COMMISSIONED by the city of Bishopville to work on the plants downtown and give them that special “Pearl” look.

Even Pearl’s favorite restaurant, Waffle House, asked Pearl to design the bushes outside their location.

(Guess who gets free meals whenever he comes there!?!)

This person who just wanted to win an award became a person that people all over knew of, respected, and loved. (You can watch a documentary about him on Apple TV that’s called, “A Man Named Pearl.”)

What was his secret? His strategy?

Simple like all things that Pearl does. (Pay attention to what I say next or you might miss it.)

He didn’t try to be someone he wasn’t.
He didn’t change his name to fit it.
He didn’t try to copy what all other topiary artists did.

Here’s what Pearl did…
He just was who he was, did what he did well, and did it his way.

And because he did this, people were drawn to him!

They wanted to meet him.
They wanted to experience what he did.
They told their friends.
And then the accidental branding happened… they wanted to be like Pearl so much that they asked him to do what he did FOR THEM.

Are you seeing the lesson for you and your business here?

Listen to how Pearl explains it in his own words, “There’s no way they’re gonna forget me. An African-American guy, in Bishopville, named Pearl Fryar with a topiary garden… And it works in my favor.”

You just heard Pearl’s branding revelation.

I’d say it like this…

Stop trying to fit in.
Stop trying to copy everyone else in your niche.
Be YOU.
Better yet… Be you in all your uniqueness, with all of your idiosyncrasies.

George Washington Carver’s Secret to Being Unforgettable

I’ll leave you with one more take on the way to implement the 10th marketing fundamental. It’s a quote from another unlikely source...

“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.”
– George Washington Carver

Do this and the world will be drawn to you like they were to Pearl.
You’ll become unforgettable.

IMPORTANT: This article originally appeared on my site RecessionSolution.com.

You learn more about Pearl and how visit his garden here. You can find him on Facebook here.

The 10th Marketing Fundamental

This article is the third one in a series of articles focused on the 10th marketing fundamental. If you haven’t read the other articles, you can do that below:

February 3, 2022February 2, 2022

This is Why Your Content Marketing Is Being Ignored

This is Why Your Content Marketing Is Getting Ignored

A decade ago, I came across a story on The Guardian of a man with the strangest condition I have ever heard of.

I wasn’t expecting this, but after I read his story, I realized that his story reveals something you might be concerned about: why your content marketing isn’t working.

I’ll explain what I mean in a second. But first, you’ve got to hear this man’s shocking story…

Living in a Right-Sided World

Alan Burgess’ life changed forever on November 5, 2007.

It was the day he had a stroke.

I know that many people have strokes, so that might not seem unique.

But how his stroke changed his way of perceiving the world is what makes this such a unique story.

You see, his stroke left him with a syndrome known as hemispatial neglect.

His stroke damaged the parietal lobe on the right side of his brain, which is the part of our brain that handles our ability to pay attention or be aware of certain things in our world.

That means that his stroke had a strange effect on his attention.

It caused him to ignore people, sounds, and objects on his left. It’s like the world on his left doesn’t exist at all.

Now you need to understand something. He is NOT blind in his left eye.

His brain is just ignoring one side of his world.

Before his stroke, Burgess was working as a driver. But now his “visual neglect” makes driving impossible, so he had to retire early.

Since his retirement, he has taken up painting, which he really enjoys.

But if you took a look at his paintings, you’d notice something unique about them.

Half of the picture is missing.

He has a painting that he has done of two robins, which he copied from a Christmas card.

The robin that is on the right is done in full detail, but if you look at the one on the left, you’d notice that it is still unfinished.

A doctor who studies this condition, named Dr. Paresh Malhotra described this condition in this way, “Vision is most strikingly affected because we are visual creatures, but hearing, touch, representation, and sense of self are also affected.”

The sad thing about this condition is that people who have hemispatial neglect are many times not even aware of their condition.

And because of this, many people like Alan Burgess don’t seek out help.

What does this have to with content marketing? A lot.

And it all begins with multitasking.

Let me explain…

The Short-Order Cook and the Myth of Multitasking

I actually think I am pretty good at multitasking. (In fact, I’ve stopped writing this multiple times to do other things like check my email.)

Don’t you feel the same way about your awesome multitasking ability?

Well, according to an NPR article on multitasking, we’re wrong.

“Humans, they say, don’t do lots of things simultaneously. Instead, we switch our attention from task to task extremely quickly.”

The example they use in the article to show us this reality is the example of a short-order cook.

Short-order cooks have to juggle all sorts of small tasks. Tasks that enable them to make: Chocolate chip pancakes, scrambled eggs with sausage, an order of French fries, and even rye toast.

Cooking pancakes or eggs might not seem like that big of a deal. But on a busy day, when you need to manage all of their small details at the same time, then they become a really difficult job.

You might be thinking… “Who cares? I’m not a short order-cook!”

Well, as the NPR article reveals, we’re ALL living lives where we have to juggle all sorts of small details simultaneously.

We all have emails to answer, calls to return, errands that need to get done, meetings that we need to attend, family responsibilities that are on our calendar, etc. And many of these things are things we need to do all at the same time.

And so, just like a short-order cook, we are forced to juggle it all.

But here’s the problem. We’re living in a fantasy world.

Neuroscientist Earl Miller says it like this in this NPR article…

“People can’t multitask very well, and when people say they can, they’re deluding themselves. The brain is very good at deluding itself.”

Information Neglect

We don’t realize this, but we all have a condition that we are unaware of. And it’s the result of living in a world where we have to multitask in order to survive.

I call this condition “Information Neglect.”

Our brains haven’t experienced a stroke that has caused us to ignore a certain side of our world.

Instead, our brains have been overloaded by so many tasks and so much information that we’ve begun to block out the flood of information that flows our way each day.

And some of that information we’re blocking out is very important. But it doesn’t matter. We’ll never see it.

This leads us to the problem I mentioned at the beginning: why your content marketing isn’t working.

You see, you aren’t the only one with this Information Neglect condition.

Your prospects have Information Neglect too.

This leads to three problems that content marketers need to overcome:

That means that some of that excess information that your prospects are blocking out is your content.
They don’t even see your content. It’s not even on their radar.
They don’t even know they’re doing this.

This is the world we now live in.

This is the condition we all have, even if we don’t realize this.

So what is a content marketer to do about this?

How do you create content that people will actually consume?

I’ll tell you…

How to Create Content That Doesn’t Get Ignored

You know, I didn’t tell you everything that I discovered when I read Alan Burgess’ story.

There was something I left out. It’s something about Dr. Malhotra that was mentioned at the end of the article.

It’s this surprising fact: Dr. Malhotra figured out a way to begin to REDUCE this problem in hemispatial neglect patients.

Listen how…

“His most recent work has looked at how patients might reduce this bias to the right. Previous research suggests that people with normal vision perform better at visual attention tasks when they are rewarded for good performance and Dr. Malhotra and his team have found the same thing in neglected patients.”

This is amazing.

By offering patients with hemispatial neglect rewards for noticing and paying attention to what they are normally blind to, he is helping them to overcome their perception blindness!

And guess what?

I believe that that is the answer to solve your problem too.

Here’s what I mean…

If you want to create content marketing that is not ignored, but is actually noticed and happily consumed, then you must do the same thing.

You must reward your prospects for consuming your content.

When you reward your prospects for consuming your content, then they will gladly pay attention and consume the content you create.

I call this type of content “rewarding content.”

Three Ways to Create “Rewarding Content” That Your Prospects Will Want to Consume

There are many ways to create content that rewards your prospects.

I don’t have the time to go into them all, so let me just focus on three basic types of “rewarding content” that you can create:

Create content that answers your prospects’ questions.

If you create content about topics no one cares about, then guess how many people will consume it? That’s right. No one.

Instead, you want to create content that answers your prospects’ questions and is focused on topics and subjects that they care about.

I did that here. I wrote about a topic that you probably care about: “why your content is getting ignored”.

You need to do the same thing and create content that answers your prospects’ questions.

This type of content will teach your prospects to pay attention and cause them to want to consume your content because they know that it rewards them with answers to their actual questions.

Create content that is enjoyable to read.

The other way to create content that your prospects will pay attention to is to create content that is enjoyable.

I firmly believe that even the most boring topic can be made enjoyable to consume if you use the right methods to create intriguing content.

I just did that in this post. I wrote about the topic of “multitasking,” which isn’t necessarily the most exciting topic. But I used Alan Burgess’ story and the analogy of a short-order cook to make it more interesting.

You must do the same thing.

This type of content will teach your prospects to pay attention and cause them to want to consume your content, because they know that you provide content that not only answers their questions, but is enjoyable and intriguing.

And sometimes you can actually create content where you literally give your prospects some kind of real reward.

The above two types of “rewarding content” are based on rewards that are IN the content itself. But this last one is a reward that exists outside of your content.

It is something that your content points to.

That means that you create content that leads to, or reveals, a reward for your prospect in the form of a special report, a discount, a video, or maybe a contest of some kind. (These are just a few examples. You need to get creative and come up with others.)

This type of content will teach your prospects to pay attention and cause them to want to consume your content. Because they know that it answers their questions, is enjoyable to consume, and even (sometimes) leads them to actual rewards.

A Daily Bouquet of Love

“Attention is like a daily bouquet of love.”

-Bob Keeshan aka “Captain Kangaroo”

I love the above quote about attention from Bob Keeshan.

I think it’s a great way to think about the value that someone is giving to you when they give you their attention.

And with all of the distractions we have these days, I think that “attention” has become the treasure that all businesses are desperately searching for.

If you really want your prospects to cover you in “daily bouquets of love,” then you must learn how to create content that rewards them.

That is the only way that you can overcome the modern condition of Information Neglect.

Good luck.

P.S. Just in case you were disappointed that I didn’t show you an example of how I used the third type of “rewarding content,” you might want to look through the above post again. I included a reward hidden for you in one of the links above. (Hint: It’s towards the top.)

IMPORTANT: This article originally appeared on MarketingInsiderGroup.com.

The 10th Marketing Fundamental

This article is the third one in a series of articles focused on the 10th marketing fundamental. If you haven’t read the other articles, you can do that below:

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February 2, 2022February 2, 2022

5 Ways to Make Your Content Marketing (and Your Business) More Memorable

What I am about to tell you might, at first, be shocking, but please hear me out.

Because once you understand the full impact of this truth, it could change how you create content — and how it positively impacts your business.

You might think that one of the reasons your business isn’t more successful is because prospects and customers are rejecting you.

The fact is that this is probably not true. (Unless you have a generic or lousy product, then you’re right. They are rejecting you.)

The real reason you’re not more successful could be something as simple as this: They don’t remember you. (See the 10th marketing fundamental.)

Let me tell you a story to illustrate just how important memory is to successful content marketing (and a successful business)…

A Tragedy Spawns History’s Greatest Memory Technique

The great Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero aka “Cicero” was the first to record a legendary story about the discovery of a memorization method that has been used by people throughout history — and is still used by top “memory athletes” today.

Once, a poet named Simonides of Ceos was dining at the house of a wealthy nobleman named Scopas. He was there to recite a poem that he’d composed in honor of his host.

As was the custom in his day, he included a long passage referring to Castor and Pollux (twins who were commonly mentioned in Greek and Roman mythologies).

However, this large inclusion in the middle of his poem made Scopas angry, so he told Simonides that he’d only pay him half the fee agreed on for the poem.

Simonides returned to his seat at the banquet table very frustrated with Scopas. But what happened next, would be something he could never have imagined, even in his wildest dreams.

Not long after this disagreement, Simonides received a message that two young men were standing at Scopas’ door, anxiously wanting to see him. Simonides got up from his seat and went out to meet them.

The strange thing was that once he got to the door, no one seemed to be there. Just as he stood outside looking for them, a horrible tragedy occurred.

The roof of the hall where Scopas had been giving the banquet caved in, killing Scopas and everyone else inside. Later, when their friends were digging through the rubble, they couldn’t find the bodies of their loved ones, or even tell them apart, because they had been completely crushed.

It was because of this horrible tragedy that history’s greatest memory method was discovered. How?

Because Simonides was able to identify where each person would be found in the rubble by remembering where each of them had been while reclining at the table a few moments before.

Later, as he thought about this experience, it suddenly hit him: Our minds have an incredible ability to remember things spatially.

He realized that if he replaced the people sitting at the table with important items or ideas, he could remember those items just as easily as he recalled who was sitting where.

Thus, the concept of the “memory palace” was created, and from that moment on, it has been one of the most popular memorization tools people have had.

Now, hold onto this thought, because I’ll be coming back to it in just a minute.

It’s Not Personal

As I mentioned above, the reason that your prospects and customers might not be buying from you could simply be a problem of memory.

In other words, you’re not on the top of their mind when they need the service or product you’re offering. And if your prospects and customers can’t remember you in their time of need, you may as well not even exist to them.

When you realize that one of the biggest problems your business faces may just be a memory problem, then you will understand that your most important task in business is to become more memorable.

This is as fundamental to successful content marketing (and marketing, on the whole) as any other tool or technique.

Moonwalking with Einstein

Many years ago, I read a really interesting book by Joshua Foer called Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.

Though this book has nothing to do with content marketing, it still contains a powerful truth that every content marketer should be familiar with:

“The principle underlying all memory techniques is that our brains don’t remember all types of information equally well.”
– Joshua Foer in Moonwalking with Einstein

He says that while we are good at remembering visual imagery, we may not be as good at remembering words or numbers.

Basically, he feels the secret of “memory athletes” is the ability to transform the things we want to remember into the kinds of memories our brains were built to remember well.

Don’t miss this point, because it’s just as important for content marketers as it is for memory athletes.

The key to getting our content marketing noticed and consumed, instead of being ignored by the reticular activating system, is to create content that our brains were built to remember.

How do you accomplish this? Foer’s words also reveal a solution:

“The general idea with most memory techniques is to change whatever boring thing is being inputted into your memory into something that is so colorful, so exciting, and so different from anything you’ve seen before that you can’t possibly forget it.”
– Joshua Foer in Moonwalking with Einstein

The Good News for Content Marketers

The good news is that, if it is used effectively, content marketing is perfect for making your business more memorable. But the key is to use it effectively.

As I always say, you cannot create generic content and expect to see results. It will never grab your audience’s attention or be memorable. You must create content that is unique and memorable. And here are five suggestions on ways you can do just that:

Harness the power of case studies: As I said before, stories are a powerful tool that we all need to leverage, because our minds seem to be intrinsically wired to remember them. Case studies don’t just present prospects with words and numbers they won’t remember — they tell stories that flesh out the words and numbers you use to describe your business, and give them context. This isn’t just a much more powerful way to convey information, it a much more memorable way, too.
Harness the power of repetition: Strangers aren’t memorable to us, but we do remember people we have met and liked. You want your business to become something that consumers know, like, and trust. The way to do this as a business is the same way you do this as a person: You need to keep in touch with people you want to be remembered by. You must use content to keep in regular touch with your prospects and customers. You can do this through email, blog posts, podcasts, or video posts. Repetition is a strong memory tool, so it’s essential that you frequently and consistently place your content in front of your prospects and customers.
Harness the power of descriptions: Our minds are adept at remembering things we can picture — this includes images, of course, but it also pertains to words that are highly descriptive. For this reason, it’s key that you use visuals and descriptions in your content (even if you are trying to present analytic or other data-rich information). Descriptive words help your prospects “see” and understand what you’re talking about. This means you will want to use analogies, adjectives, and any other comparisons in your content as much as possible, so your readers will be able to better lock it into their memories.
Harness the power of imagination: This next method is similar to the last one in some ways, but moves beyond just descriptive words. Simonides realized that our minds are adept at remembering things in terms of spatial relationships. Similarly, content marketers can tap into the power of imagination to form memorable bonds between businesses and customers. In other words, you want to create content that will encourage your prospects to imagine what it is like to do business with you — to use your products or services and to experience the positive results this relationship will bring. By doing this, customers can, in a sense, experience your business in relation to their needs, which will enable them to remember you on a deeper level.
Harness the power of voice: The final content marketing method I want to encourage you to use relies on the power that comes from using your own, unique voice. Remember that Foer said that the general idea of all memory techniques is to change something “boring” into something that’s “so colorful, so exciting, and so different from anything you’ve seen before that you can’t possibly forget it”? That’s what writing (or speaking) in your own voice will do to your content. It makes your content stand out from the boring “me too” content. It will make it more interesting, and most of all, memorable.

Once you realize that one of your most overlooked business problems is likely a memory problem (not an “interest” problem) and you recognize how poorly our minds remember abstract words and numbers, you’ll come to realize how vital it is that we focus on becoming more memorable in our content marketing.

While the five ideas above are just suggestions, there are plenty of other ways to make content more memorable. If you have your own ideas, we would love it if you could post them in the comments.

IMPORTANT: This article originally appeared on ContentMarketingInstitute.com and later as a chapter in my book 51 Content Marketing Hacks.

April 30, 2021April 30, 2021

How to Make Ordinary Content (or Copy) Feel Extraordinary

Whether you are a content marketer or a copywriter, you face the same challenge. You must make your content or copy stand out from the rest in your niche.

If you don’t, you will never sell the product or service you’re promoting. And you definitely won’t last in your job or your career very long.

That means it’s imperative that you learn how to create better content or persuasive copy.

Well, I want to show you one way you can make ordinary content or copy feel extraordinary.

Do you know the best part about what I’m about to reveal to you?
It’s a method that many people don’t know or completely overlook.

In order for you to fully understand this method, I first need to tell you a story, or better yet, a legend.

Because the legend you’re about to hear contains the secret behind this powerful method…

The Legend of the Extraordinarily Ordinary Tea

There once was a group of elderly, cultured gentlemen who met often to exchange wisdom and drink tea.

Each host did their best to find the finest and most costly varieties of tea that they could.

Each host worked hard to create exotic blends that would arouse the admiration of their guests.

When the most honored and respected member of the group had them all over, he served his tea with unprecedented ceremony.

He measured the leaves from a golden box.

The elderly group of cultured gentlemen praised this exquisite tea.

They couldn’t stop talking about how amazing the tea was.

But what the host revealed next surprised his guests...

He smiled and said, “The tea you have found so delightful is the same tea our peasants drink. I hope it will be a reminder to all that the good things in life are not necessarily the rarest or the most costly.”

First of all, it is true and very important for us all to remember that many of the ordinary things in life are pretty amazing in and of themselves.

I don’t want you to miss that lesson.

But I didn’t tell you that story to teach you that lesson.
I told it because I wanted to teach you a hidden lesson.

The Hidden Lesson

I want you to notice the important hidden lesson in this legend.
What is the hidden lesson?

The lesson is that presentation and packaging really matter.

Do you think the elderly tea connoisseurs would have been raving if he served the ordinary tea in an ordinary way?
Do you think that his friends would have been in awe of his tea if he measured it out of an ordinary container?

The answer to both of these questions is no!

You see, he didn’t present his tea in an ordinary way.
He presented it with unprecedented ceremony.

He didn’t measure it out of an ordinary container.
He measured the leaves from a golden box.

That is what influenced the opinion of his guests.

That is what created the feeling that they were drinking something extraordinary.

How This Lesson Can Help You to Make Your Ordinary Content or Copy Feel Extraordinary

After reading this far, some of you are feeling like the elderly gentleman’s friends.

You have enjoyed the “taste” and “experience” of the content I just presented for you to consume.

The possible impact of the method and truth I just revealed has really intrigued you.
If you’re feeling that way, I’m glad. That was the plan I had for you when I wrote this article.

Do you want to know how I created this content in a way to impact you?
I did it by applying the same method I just revealed to you.

In other words, I used the same method that the honored and respected member of the tea connoisseurs used.

I took an ordinary (but very important) idea and I focused on doing my best to present it to you in the most extraordinary way I could.

What was my idea?

My ordinary idea was this: How you present your content will make all the difference in whether your content or copy feels ordinary or extraordinary.

How I Used His Method in This Article

Instead of just presenting the above sentence/method to you, I focused on the presentation of the method:

I started by focusing on the need you have to make your content or copy stand out.
I reminded you how the ability, or lack of ability, to do this will mean success or failure for you.
I told you that that is why you must learn how to create better content or persuasive copy.
I told you I wanted to show you a method that many people don’t know or many overlook.
Then I told you the legend of the extraordinarily ordinary tea.
ONLY after all of that did I reveal the idea/lesson.

Now, please pay close attention because this is really important…

All of the things I did before “the reveal “were important things for you to know or be reminded of. All of those things were true.

Your content or copy must stand out from your competition or it will fall short. It will fail you.

It is extremely important that you know how to create powerful content and engaging copy.

The ordinary idea that I revealed today will play a very important role in enabling you to make your content or copy feel extraordinary.

In fact, this ordinary idea is so important I COULDN’T risk the chance of you ignoring it.
I HAD to figure out the most extraordinary way to present it to you.

Otherwise, you never would’ve consumed this content. This means you never would have learned (or been reminded of) this valuable, but very ordinary idea.

I couldn’t risk doing anything else or anything less.
This ordinary idea was too valuable to waste.

Would You or Your Team Like to Learn How to Create Content Like This?

If you or your team of content marketers or copywriters would like to learn how to create powerful content or persuasive copy, I have three options you can choose from:

Stay tuned for the next article that I’ll be posting next week. I’m going to continue to show you how to harness the power of the 7th marketing fundamental you need to succeed in 2021. (You can read all of the 7 marketing fundamentals here.)
Contact me if you’d like more information about a small, paid coaching group I’m thinking of starting. If there’s enough interest, I’ll teach a small group of you many more ways you can use to create powerful content and persuasive copy – copy that will stand out from the rest of the content or copy out there. Contact me and I’ll give you more details on what I’m going to teach and how much it will cost.

(*Don’t worry. If you contact me, you won’t be obligated to be a part of the group. I won’t pressure you or barrage you with emails begging you to be a part. I don’t want anyone to be a part of this group unless they are really interested and excited to be a part.)

IMPORTANT: If you work for a company and you have a group of content marketers or copywriters you’d like me to coach, I would be willing to start a group with just your team. We would just need to agree on a regular coaching time and a price that works for your team and me. Contact me and let’s talk about it more.
You can choose option 1 and option 2. You can stay tuned for my next article and contact me about the coaching. 🙂

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April 26, 2021April 26, 2021

The 11 Indispensable Elements Behind All Great Content or Copy

Powerful content or compelling copy doesn’t just happen by accident any more than a great book or popular movie happens by accident.

Engaging content or effective copy is not only written using creativity. It’s also formed with a clear purpose and strategy in mind.

If you want to know how to write powerful content or great copy, then you will want to keep reading. I’m about to reveal to you the indispensable elements behind all great content or copy.

But before I do that, I need to tell you a quick story that will reveal something interesting about our desire to know the elements that form things…

The Universal Theory of the Ancient World

There was once an interesting theory that was believed throughout the ancient world.

What was this “universal theory”? It was the theory that nature and all of matter could be explained by four elements: water, earth, fire, air.

The cultures of Ancient Egypt, Greece, Persia, Babylonia, India, and several other cultures all had similar elements on their lists. That’s really interesting, isn’t it?

It’s interesting that people who were separated by great distances all came up with a similar list of the core elements of this world.

Of course, science doesn’t believe that these four elements are what make up our material world anymore. Atomic theory now states that matter is composed of atoms.

But my point is, whether it’s the ancient cultures or modern science, all of us are always trying to figure out the core elements that make up the things around us.

Well, I have good news for you today. There actually are some core elements behind all powerful content or copy. In fact, I would say there are 11 elements.

I’ll reveal what those 11 elements are in just a minute. But first, let me remind you of what I shared in my last article.

The 7th Marketing Fundamental

In my last article, I told you that the words you use are the 7th marketing fundamental you need to succeed in 2021.

In other words, after you’ve chosen your Who (the 5th marketing fundamental) and created the most powerful offer that you can for them (the 6th marketing fundamental), the next most important thing you can do is focus on the words you use.

The words you use or don’t use in your content or copy will make all the difference between your company experiencing success or failure from the marketing you use in 2021.

But you can’t just use any words that are randomly thrown together and expect to see amazing results.

If you want your words to have an impact, then your content or your copy must contain certain powerful elements.

The 11 Elements Behind All Powerful Content or Copy

Below are what I believe to be the eleven elements behind all powerful content or copy:

Capture Attention– You must have a captivating headline and an intriguing intro or you will never get anyone to consume your content or copy. If they don’t consume it, your company will never experience the success that it could in 2021.
Hold Attention – Once you capture their attention, you need to know how to keep hold of it. Because if you can’t keep your prospects attention, you will never be able to lead them where you want them to go.
Entertain – Your content or copy must be enjoyable to consume. If your content or copy isn’t enjoyable to read, then it will not be consumed. But if it is enjoyable to read, then people will not only consume it once, but they will also come back to read other content or copy you create. They will also share it with others.
Personality – If you want your content or copy to stand out, it must have a unique voice or tone. In other words, it must have personality. The common problem with a lot of content I see is that it doesn’t stand out. It sounds the same as any other content on the same topic. Copy without personality has the same problem. If your content or copy doesn’t stand out, it will never impact your prospects.
Educate – Great content or copy leaves people feeling like they know something that they didn’t know before. Or maybe it reminds them of something they forgot or have been overlooking. If your content or copy educates people, they will come back for more and share it with others.
Believable – Your content or copy must provide your readers with reasons to believe. I think it was Todd Brown that said this, “Not all things that are true are believable, and not all things that are believable are true.” You must tell the truth and do it in a way that people believe and accept it. If people don’t believe you, they will never purchase from you.
Answer Objections or Question – Questions or objections are a normal response to any information. You should not be surprised by them. You should expect them. Not only should you expect them, but you should also anticipate them and answer within your content or copy. If you can answer the objections and questions of the readers of your content or copy, then you have removed a major barrier that keeps people from purchasing from you.
Speaks to the Heart and the Mind – We are beings that have emotions and intellect, so both should be spoken to or I should say “written to.” If you want to create powerful content or copy, you need to create content that speaks to people’s hearts and their minds.
Inspiring – The origin of the word “inspire” comes from a Latin word that means to inflame or to blow in to. In other words, when you inspire someone, it’s like you’re blowing air over a low flame to make it grow. That means your content or copy can inspire many things in your readers. It can inspire confidence, hope, or inspire them to take action. Powerful content or copy is inspiring.
Empathetic – Your content or copy must show that you understand and can relate to the feelings of your readers. Do you want to know the secret to create content or copy that’s empathetic? You have to actually have empathy with your readers. If you don’t, then any content or copy you create with the appearance of empathy will ring hollow.
Motivate to take action – This is the ultimate sign of powerful content or copy. Powerful content or copy moves people to action. That means that it moves them to do things like: purchase from you, subscribe, share, or even comment on your content. If your content or copy doesn’t inspire people to action, it really just ends up being empty words. Empty words will not bring success to your company this year.

In My Upcoming Articles, We’ll Go Deeper

Today, I just wanted to touch on the eleven basic elements. But in my upcoming articles, I will go a little deeper on some of these elements,

Notice I said “some.” I won’t be able to go deeper into all of them. But I do want to give you some specific tips on how to use some of these elements in your content or copy.

Stay tuned. In the meantime, why don’t you sign-up below so that you will be notified when my next article goes live or when future articles do.

(While you’re at it, you should also sign-up to get access to the free resources in our DRCM Member’s Resource Area.)

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April 14, 2021April 13, 2021

The 7th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

Some Interesting Facts About Average Word Usage

Here are some facts about word usage that you might find interesting:

Studies have shown that the average English native speaker knows about 20,000 words. (BellEnglish.com)
30,000 (words per day) x 365 (days in a year) = 10,950,000 words per year. (Latg.org)
Vocabulary growth stops at middle age. (WordCounter.io)
University-educated people know around 40,000 words. (BellEnglish.com)
A child in first grade uses between 8,000-14,000 words. (Scholastic)
When actually speaking and with everyday writing (emails, letters, notes, etc.), the amount of words the average person uses goes down to about 5,000 very common words that are used repeatedly. (BellEnglish.com)
300 to 600 words may be enough to travel, but at least 1,000 words are necessary for a conversation in another language. (MosaLingua.com)

Keep those facts in mind. Why?

Because the marketing fundamental I’m going to reveal to you today has something to do with word usage.

Keep reading and you’ll discover what I mean…

The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021

Three months ago, on the first Monday in January, I began a series called “The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021.“ Today, I’m going to reveal the 7th marketing fundamental you need to succeed this year.

If you haven’t read the other articles in this series, then you should read the next section. It will help you to understand the importance of the marketing fundamentals I’m sharing with you.

Skip This If You’ve Read the Other Articles in This Series

In my first article of the series, I laid an important foundation that I have continued to build on. In that article I said…

Based on some things I’ve been reading from the experts I follow, there are some interesting trends and predictions that are said to be coming our way in 2021.
These trends and predictions will be opportunities for people that know how to leverage them.
But I believe that the sweet spot in 2021 is the place where opportunity and the fundamentals meet.
You see, the people and companies that succeed the most are the ones that keep their eye out for opportunities and then take advantage of them by harnessing the fundamentals.
What fundamentals? The marketing fundamentals that have existed for at least 100 years and that will probably exist for at least another 100 years.
-Scott Aughtmon, The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021.

Before I reveal what the 6th marketing fundamental is, let me remind you what we’ve covered over these last two months.

Because it’s important for you to have these in mind as you discover what the 6th marketing fundamental is.

Here are the first 6 of the marketing fundamentals you need to succeed this year…

The First 6 Marketing Fundamentals:

Here are the six marketing fundamentals that I’ve revealed so far are in this series:

The first marketing fundamental is attention. Because without attention, there is no marketing.
The second marketing fundamental is attraction. Without attraction, all the work you put into capturing their attention will be wasted.
The third marketing fundamental is follow-up. Because two of the biggest mistakes many companies make are tied to follow-up. They don’t follow up at all. They don’t follow up enough.
The fourth marketing fundamental is a unique selling proposition. Because if you’re ever going to get your prospects to choose your company, product, or service over your competition, then they have to know WHY and HOW your business is different and better than any of the other choices.
The fifth marketing fundamental is your Who or what is commonly called your “target market.” Because if you don’t get this group of prospects right, then all of your marketing efforts will produce little results.
The 6th marketing fundamental is your offer. If you don’t create a powerful offer, even the right “whos” won’t end up purchasing from you.

Now that you’re all caught up, you’re ready to discover the 7th marketing fundamental.

When I revealed the 5th marketing fundamental, I told you that there’s a secret that successful direct response marketers all know.

They know that the most important element in a successful direct response campaign is the list. It’s what I called your Who.

When I revealed the 6th marketing fundamental, I told you that there’s another secret that successful direct response marketers know.

They know that the second most important element is a successful direct response piece is the offer.

Well, today I’m going to reveal the third most important element of a successful response piece.

After the who and the offer, it’s the most important component to creating powerful copy or content. This component is what I am calling the 7th marketing fundamental.

What’s the 7th marketing fundamental? It’s the words you use.

5 Important Facts to Understand About the 7th Marketing Fundamental

Now, that you know what the 7th marketing fundamental is, let me clarify some important facts that you need to understand:

Most marketers start with the words. That’s the wrong place to start. You must start with the right list, the right who, or the right audience. (They are all basically the same thing.)
If you are creating content or copy that is meant to directly influence sales, the second thing you must do is come up with the most powerful offer that will appeal to the list/who/audience you’ve chosen.
That is NOT to say that the copy/words/content that you choose to use are not that important. They are very important. But their importance doesn’t come into play until after you’ve chosen the right who and the right offer.
After those things are chosen, there is nothing more important to creating powerful marketing than the words you use. The most important elements are not the images you use or the layout of your page. Even though those things are important, the words you use are more important.
The words you use or don’t use will make all the difference between your company experiencing success or failure from the marketing you use in 2021.

That means your success in implementing the 7th marketing fundamental in 2021 comes down to how you answer these questions…

Do you know the kinds of words, phrases, and sentences that will make your prospects actually enjoy reading your copy or your content?
Do you know the kinds of words, phrases, and sentences that are the most effective to use to capture your prospect’s attention?
Do you know the types of words, phrases, and sentences that are the most important in helping your prospects to overcome their hesitancy to act on your offer?
Do you know the types of words, phrases, and sentences that will cause your copy or content to stand out from the sea of sameness?

In my upcoming articles, I’m going to reveal some of the elements that you can use to create powerful content and copy. Once you know these elements, you will enable you to answer “yes” to all of the questions above.

Stay tuned.

The First 6 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021 (INFOGRAPHIC)

Did you see my last article with the infographic of the first 6 marketing fundamentals?

If you haven’t, you can click the link above to read the full article. If you’ve already read it, I’ve included the infographic below again. Why?

Because I want to ask you to do me favor. Can you share it on your favorite social media platform and/or on your website?

When you do, you’ll not only be helping your followers and/or website visitors, you’ll be helping me to spread the word about this series I’m doing.

The First 6 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021 – Infographic

The First 6 Marketing Fundamentals DIRECTRESPONSECONTENTMARKETINGcom 1

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April 6, 2021April 6, 2021

The First 6 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021 (INFOGRAPHIC)

Famous Indy Race Car Driver’s Surprising Success Secret

It’s been said that race car driver Bill Vukovich, the man who won the Indianapolis 500 race back in 1953 and 1954, had something surprising to say about his “secret to success“.

When he was asked the secret of his success in the Indianapolis 500, Vukovich shocked people with his answer.

He said, “There’s no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and steer left.”

What Bill was basically saying was this: Success comes down to how you implement the fundamentals.

Bill’s Advice Applies to Business Success Too

As I’ve said, I believe that the sweet spot in 2021 is the place where opportunity and the fundamentals meet.

The people and companies that succeed the most are the ones that keep their eye out for opportunities and then take advantage of them by harnessing the fundamentals.

That means that the secret of the companies that will succeed in 2021 and beyond will come down to this:

Understand the current opportunities
Successfully apply the fundamentals to take advantage of these opportunities

In other words, the secret of the companies that will succeed in 2021 will be very similar to Bill’s advice: “There’s no secret. After you see the opportunities, seize those opportunities by successfully pushing the accelerator on those fundamentals.”

Why I Stopped Posting for a Few Weeks

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been publishing a series of articles that reveal the 12 marketing fundamentals that will help you succeed in 2021.

But some of you might have noticed something. After posting the first six marketing fundamentals, I haven’t posted an article in a couple of weeks.

Why? Well, there are a few reasons:

I was really busy at work.
I went on vacation.
And we had friends come to visit.

Anyway, I’ll be continuing my series and will be posting the final marketing fundamentals you need to succeed this year. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, you’ll find a list of the first 6 marketing fundamentals below.

The First 6 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021 – Infographic

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The First 6 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021 – Text Version

The 1st marketing fundamental is attention. Without attention, there’s no marketing.
The 2nd marketing fundamental is attraction. Without attraction, all the work capturing attention is wasted.
The 3rd marketing fundamental is follow-up. Two of the biggest mistakes many companies make are tied to follow-up.
The 4th marketing fundamental is a USP. You need this if you’re going to get your prospects to choose you over your competition.
The 5th marketing fundamental is your “who.” Because if you don’t get this group right, all of your marketing efforts will produce little results.
The 6th marketing fundamental is your offer. If you don’t create a powerful offer, even the right “whos” won’t end up purchasing from you.

Catch Up on What You Missed in This Series

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If you would like to learn more about any of the above fundamentals, then click here to choose any articles you’d like to read. (There are now 33 articles you can read in this series.)

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March 9, 2021March 8, 2021

3 Important Lessons from McDonald’s on How to Create Attractive Offers

The ability to create attractive offers is a crucial skill for any marketer and/or company.

If you missed my two previous articles on the 6th marketing fundamental you need to succeed in 2021, you can see them here:

Today, I have a video for you in which I reveal three lessons that you can learn from McDonald’s and begin using right away.

Why McD’s?

Because they know how to create attractive offers that keep people coming back again and again.

3 Important Lessons from McDonald’s on How to Create Attractive Offers

In this video, I share three important lessons that we can learn from two limited-time items that I saw on their menu almost two years ago.

I also share 3.5 takeaways that you can apply to your own company.
Watch the 10:43 minute video now…

Keep an eye out for my next article.
In it, I will reveal the reason why you must create irresistible offers.

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March 4, 2021March 4, 2021

The 9 Elements You Need to Create a Powerful Offer

In my last article, I told you that the offer is the 6th marketing fundamental you need to succeed in 2021. In other words, you need to learn how to create powerful offers.

I also told you not to make the mistake that so many do. Your offer is much more than just your product or service.

In fact, there are certain key elements that every powerful offer has. Today, I want to reveal those key elements to you.

But before I do that, I need to tell you a story that will help you understand the importance of what I’m about to show you.

Let me tell you the story and then I’ll explain…

The Dream That Led to the Discovery of the Periodic Table

Back in 1863, there were only 56 known elements.

That’s less than half of the 118 known elements today. At that point in time, some scientists had already noticed that elements seemed to have patterns in their chemical makeup that showed up in some kind of regular intervals.

But the process of discovering new elements took a very long time back then. How long? About a year. Well, that was about to change thanks to a man named Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev.

Dmitri was a Russian Chemistry professor. But he wasn’t just your average Chemistry professor.

After becoming a teacher in 1867, he wrote what was considered the Chemistry textbook of his time. It was called Principles of Chemistry. (He wrote it while he was preparing for a course he taught.)

It was while writing his book that he made an important discovery. As he tried to classify the elements according to their properties, he suddenly noticed something.

He noticed patterns. It was those patterns that led him to come up with what we know as the periodic table. But this is where the story gets interesting.

He later revealed that he had a vision of the complete arrangement of the elements in a dream.

Listen to how he describes this below…

DIMEND1 — By кабинет академика Михаила Михайловича Шульца – фото любезно передано мне в собственность вдовой М.М.Шульца Ниной Дмитриевной Шульц., Public Domain,

“I saw in a dream a table where all elements fell into place as required. Awakening, I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper, only in one place did a correction later seem necessary.”
— Mendeleev, as quoted by Inostrantzev

That’s pretty amazing, huh?

At this point, you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you about a periodic tables when you’re wanting to learn about offers.

Well, it wasn’t just so I could tell you an interesting story. I told you this story because of what the discovery of the Periodic Table enables people to do.

Let me explain.

What the Periodic Table Enables Chemistry Students to Do

If it wasn’t for the simplification of the elements in this chart, chemistry students would need to learn all of the properties of all 118 known elements.

But, thanks to the periodic table, chemistry students only need to master the properties of a handful of elements. Why? Because all of the other elements fall into groups or families that have the same type of chemical properties.

Did you catch that? The periodic table gave people a much simpler, condensed way to understand all of the many different elements.

That’s exactly what I want to do for you today.

Instead of trying to give you all of the different ways that there are to create a powerful offer, I want to do give you a simpler way to understand the key elements of a powerful offer.

Use These 9 Elements to Create a Powerful Offer

With these simple elements, you’ll be able to make all types of powerful offers.
Are you ready? Here are the nine elements you need to create a powerful offer:

A headline – In the same way that your content or copy needs a headline to capture people’s attention, so does your offer.
Identify solution – You need to clearly explain and show your prospects the problem that your product or service solves.
Describe offer and benefits – You need to describe what it is that you’re actually offering and why it’s a benefit to your prospects.
Determine price or pricing structure – This is where you need to describe the value that your prospects are getting, the price, and any pricing structure or payment options that you have set up.
Bullet points – Bullet points are a really important and effective way to make certain elements of your offer more digestible and/or draw attention to important points.
Scarcity – If you really want people to act now, and not wait, you should make your offer scarce in some way. You can do this by either having a limited amount that you are selling or by limiting the number of people who can purchase that particular offer.
Time-sensitive – Another way to get people to act now and not delay their purchase is by using time sensitivity in your offer. You do this by making your offer only available for limited times or limited days.
A bonus – An effective bonus can nudge a prospect across the line and get them to purchase your product or service.
A call to action – You need to tell your prospects what to do in order to get your offer. Examples of calls to action that you might use are: “Call us at…,” or “Fill out the form below…”

Two Final Thoughts About These Elements of a Powerful Offer

Let me leave you with two final thoughts about these elements of a powerful offer.

I haven’t shared everything that there is to know about each of these elements. If I did that, I would write an article about each of these elements. But I don’t have time to do that. I still have 6 additional marketing fundamentals to reveal! 🙂
You can obviously create an offer that doesn’t have all of these nine elements. But I would encourage you NOT to take away too many of these elements if you want your offer to be as powerful as possible.

That’s it for today. I will reveal some other important things that you need to know about powerful offers in my next article.

Stay tuned.

Source for Mendeleev Story and Periodic Table: Wikipedia and ScientificAmerican.com

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March 3, 2021March 3, 2021

The 6th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

Two months ago, on the first Monday in January, I began a series called “The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021.“ Today, I’m going to reveal the 6th marketing fundamental you need to succeed this year.

If you haven’t read the other articles in this series, then read the next section. It will help you to understand the importance of the marketing fundamentals I’m sharing with you.

Skip This If You’ve Read the Other Articles in This Series

In my first article of the series, I laid an important foundation that I have continued to build on. In that article I said…

Based on some things I’ve been reading from the experts I follow, there are some interesting trends and predictions that are said to be coming our way in 2021.
These trends and predictions will be opportunities for people that know how to leverage them.
But I believe that the sweet spot in 2021 is the place where opportunity and the fundamentals meet.
You see, the people and companies that succeed the most are the ones that keep their eye out for opportunities and then take advantage of them by harnessing the fundamentals.
What fundamentals? The marketing fundamentals that have existed for at least 100 years and that will probably exist for at least another 100 years.
-Scott Aughtmon, The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021.

Before I reveal what the 6th marketing fundamental is, let me remind you what we’ve covered over these last two months.

Because it’s important for you to have these in mind as you discover what the 6th marketing fundamental is.

Here are the first 5 of the marketing fundamentals you need to succeed this year…

The First 5 Marketing Fundamentals:

Here are the five marketing fundamentals that I’ve revealed so far are in this series:

The first marketing fundamental is attention. Because without attention, there is no marketing.
The second marketing fundamental is attraction. Without attraction, all the work you put into capturing their attention will be wasted.
The third marketing fundamental is follow-up. Because two of the biggest mistakes many companies make are tied to follow-up. They don’t follow-up at all. They don’t follow-up enough.
The fourth marketing fundamental is a unique selling proposition. Because if you’re ever going to get your prospects to choose your company, product, or service over your competition, then they have to know WHY and HOW your business is different and better than any of the other choices.
The fifth marketing fundamental is your Who or what is commonly called your “target market.” Because if you don’t get this group of prospects right, then all of your marketing efforts will produce little results.

Now that you’re all caught up, you’re ready to discover the 6th marketing fundamental.

The 6th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

As you learned in a previous article, the most important element of a copywriting campaign is the list. The who.

Well, guess what the second most important element is? Again, if you asked a group of successful direct response marketers what the second most important element in a copywriting campaign is, after the list, they will tell you it’s this…

It’s your offer.

The offer is the 6th marketing fundamental you need to succeed in 2021. But, do you know what the biggest problem with offers is?

It’s the fact that many companies are confused about what an offer actually is. Most people believe that your offer is just the product or service you sell.

But that’s incorrect. An offer is much more than that.

What Is an Offer?

Yourbusiness.Azcentral.com gives this great explanation of an offer…

“An offering in marketing is the total offer to your customers. An offering is more than the product itself and includes elements that represent additional value to your customers, such as availability, convenient delivery, technical support or quality of service. A strong offering differentiates your products from competitors and creates value by meeting customers’ wider needs better than other options.”

So you see, your offer is much more than just the product or service that you’re selling.
But misunderstanding what an offer is is only part of the problem.

The next problem with offers is that many companies don’t realize an important fact. How you create and state your offer makes ALL the difference.

In other words, the offers you make in your company’s marketing shouldn’t be just an afterthought. Offers are way too important for that. They should be one of the primary things you should focus on.

To show you what an offer is and how a great, well-thought-out offer can impact your business, let me tell you a quick story of how a powerful offer accidentally started a business.

How Avon Was Accidentally Started

Have you heard of Avon? If not, here is how Wikipedia describes the company.

“Avon Products, Inc. or simply known as Avon, is a direct sales company in beauty, household, and personal care categories. Avon had annual sales of $5.57 billion worldwide in 2019.“

I’d say it’s a pretty successful company, wouldn’t you? Well, most people don’t know this but this successful company was started by accident.

It all started back in 1886. David H. McConnell was a door-to-door salesman who sold books. David was a smart man. He knew that an offer was more than just his product.

He also knew that in those days his main customers were women. (He knew his who.)

In order to attract female customers, he decided to offer little gifts of perfume. That made his offer much more attractive to his target market. Little did he know, this decision would change his life forever.

Because before long, the perfume he was giving away had become more popular than the books he was selling.

He wisely decided to shift his focus from books to perfume and founded the California Perfume Company, which later became Avon.

Think about it. If a powerful offer can accidentally start a company that’s now worth a billion dollars, what can a powerful offer do for your company?

In my upcoming articles, I’m going to reveal some things you can do to create powerful offers.

Until then, let me leave you with three questions you should ask yourself so that you can be ready to get the most value from what I’m going to share in my upcoming articles.

Take a Look at Your Business Through the Lens of Offers

Now that understand the importance of offers, I would encourage you to take a look at your business through the lens of offers.

Then ask yourself these three questions:

Have we created offers for our products or services? Or are we just selling products and services?
How effective are our offers?
What are some things that we could add to our offers to improve them?

Don’t just answer these questions in your head. Write down some answers.

Write down some examples of the offers you’ve created and look at them separately from your marketing or your ads. Then judge whether they’re good offers or not.

Take a good look at the results these offers have brought your company. Would you say that they’re effective? Is there any room for improvement? Write down what you think.

If you think they can be improved, begin to think about things you can add to your offers or other ways you can improve them. Write down any ideas.

Once you have all of these things in mind, you’ll be ready for my upcoming articles that will begin to show you the elements of a powerful offer and much more.

Stay tuned.

Source for Avon Story: Mentalfloss.com

Catch Up on What You Missed in This Series

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In the meantime, if you want to catch up on the previous marketing fundamentals I’ve already revealed, then click here. (There are now 22 previous other articles in this series.)

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February 26, 2021February 25, 2021

How Dawn Dish Soap’s Focus on Their Target Market Almost Made Them Miss a Massive Opportunity

If you stick with me today, I’m about to show you a different way to think about target markets (your who). Not only that, but I’m also going to show you a different way you can help certain target markets. And in the process, I’ll show you how that target market can help your company.

Are you ready? It all begins with the invention of a new dish soap that could clean away grease: Dawn dish soap.

Dawn dish soap is the leading dishwashing liquid in the U.S. Procter and Gamble introduced it to the marketplace in 1973. It was invented by a guy named Paul Andrecola who only 26 years old at the time.

(Interesting side note: Paul is the same person who later invented Febreze.)

So far the story doesn’t seem that exciting yet, does it? That’s because you haven’t heard about the amazing discovery that was made about Dawn…

The Amazing Discovery

Five years after it was introduced, something interesting happened that Procter and Gamble had nothing to do with.

In 1978, the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC) was conducting a test. You see, Chevron had given the IBRRC a small grant to test how well all of the major dish soaps were at cleaning birds that were covered with oil.

That’s when they made an amazing discovery.

After testing all of the dish soaps, they discovered that one of them worked way better than the others. It was Dawn.

After making this discovery, they contacted Procter & Gamble to let them know the results of their test. They also asked Procter & Gamble if they would donate cases of the product to help them to save birds.

Dawn/Procter & Gamble’s Surprising Response

What was Procter and Gamble’s response? Surprisingly, they ignored the IBRRC’s requests. Before you get upset at Procter & Gamble, you need to know the reason why. It wasn’t because they didn’t care about birds.

It was because Procter and Gamble knew that they first had to make sure Dawn was doing well as a product before they could pursue causes they wanted to support.

Now think about that for a minute. The IBRRC has uncovered a new use for Dawn and a new target market for Procter and Gamble, but Procter and Gamble didn’t see a value in pursuing this new target market… yet.

But, after 10 years spent establishing the brand in the marketplace, Procter and Gamble finally felt they were ready.

The Decision That Changed Everything

In 1988, Procter and Gamble finally agreed to donate cases of Dawn to IBRRC. Their timing couldn’t have been any more perfect. Why do I say that?

It was just a year later, during the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, that volunteers used Dawn to clean the oil-covered birds. That moment changed everything for Dawn.

The media fell in love with the story of Dawn dish soap being used to clean the birds. They loved the story so much that they featured it in their news stories. The crazy thing is the media has continued to love and share that story over all the years since.

Think about how powerful that is for the brand Dawn. What else can better prove that it works at cutting grease and is also safe and gentle?

That’s why, after taking so long to decide to participate in bird rescues, Dawn isn’t just donating cases of its dish soap.

They are now so focused on this unexpected target market that they now take part in advocating and promoting animal rescue efforts in their commercials.

Commercials like this one…

Now, that’s a powerful and moving product demonstration!

3 Lessons on Targeting Your “Who” from Dawn Dish Soap

I believe there are several valuable lessons that we can learn from Dawn dish soap:

1. Focusing on the right target market is more than just about finding a group you can sell to. It also involves focusing on a group you can effectively serve.

2. When you find the right target market to sell to, the revenue that those customers generate for your company will generate the funds that enable you to serve another market.

3. When you find the right target market to serve and actively and passionately serve them, you will attract even more people that you can sell to. Why? Because you enable a target market to give their purchase meaning.

Don’t just pick a target market for your company to serve for the financial benefit. Choose one purely for the benefit of helping a group of people (or a group of people trying to help animals as in this case).

Just know that when you do choose a certain who to serve that you will, by default, attract a certain target market that wants to purchase from you.

That’s not all. Choosing a who/target market to serve will also give a unique way to stand out in the market.

And that will give you an advantage over the competitors who only focus on a who/target market to sell to.

Just look at how it has helped Dawn. Dawn dish soap is the leading dishwashing liquid in the U.S.

Next Week: The 6th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

Well, that’s all that I want to share with you about the 5th marketing fundamental (your who). Next week, I will reveal the 6th marketing fundamental you need to succeed in 2021.

Stay tuned.

Catch Up on What You Missed in This Series

Stay tuned. Subscribe below to be automatically be notified when the next article goes live.

In the meantime, if you want to catch up on the previous marketing fundamentals I’ve already revealed, then click here. (There are now 22 previous articles in this series.)

Sources: NY Times and Prezi.com

February 25, 2021February 24, 2021

Can HGTV Teach You How to Create Content for Your Target Audience?

As I told you in a previous article, if you choose the right audience, you will be surprised at the different results you will get in 2021 from the same marketing plan.

Those of you who are content marketers might be wondering, “Once you find the right audience, how do you figure out what kind of content to create for them?”

I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve realized that I already unintentionally answered that question. I did it when I created a video about attention back on May 8, 2019.

It was when I revealed the secret the HGTV knows…

The Attention-Getting Secrets Marketers Can Learn from HGTV

Did you know that HGTV is the 6th most popular cable network?

Well, according to Statista.com they are!

That means they understand how to not only CAPTURE attention but also how to KEEP attention and build ATTENTION LOYALTY.

As content marketers or direct response marketers, wouldn’t it be cool to learn just a little of what they know about attention?

Well, in the video below, I reveal one of the secrets that HGTV knows about attention. Remember, this also applies to creating content for your target market.

Watch the video to discover this secret and see if you can see both lessons…

My Next Article is Almost Ready

I’m very close to finishing my next story on how a popular brand achieved new levels of success after they found out about a new market. It will be ready tomorrow.

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February 24, 2021February 24, 2021

Here Are Two Secrets of a Powerful Headline

Beginner marketers don’t focus on the headline as much as they should. To them, a headline is an afterthought.

Established marketers put much more thought into them. They focus on things like how their headline can impact SEO and impact SERP.

But when the most effective marketers put in the time to develop a headline, they not only think about the SEO aspect of a headline. They also think about the importance of the headline to the humans they’re wanting to attract.

Today we’re going to look at headlines through the lens of the 5th marketing fundamental. So far, I’ve revealed the 5th marketing fundamental you need to succeed in 2021. I called it your Who, but you might have heard it called your “target market.”

If you don’t get this group of prospects right, then all of your marketing efforts will produce little results.

Missed My Recent Articles?

If you’ve missed my previous articles on the 5th marketing fundamental, you can see them here:

Today, I want to show you how applying the 5th marketing fundamental to the 1st marketing fundamental (attention) can help you to capture the right people’s attention in 2021.

To show you this, you have to see what a marketing legend once revealed were the two key attributes of a good headline.

In 1958, A Marketing Legend Revealed These Secrets to Creating Powerful Headlines

On June 7, 2017, I wrote an article for MarketingInsiderGroup.com called “In 1958 A Marketing Legend Revealed These Secrets For Creating Powerful Headlines.”

In that article, I shared a powerful quote and two lessons that I want you to see…

“There are two principal attributes of good headlines. They select, from the total readership of the publication, those readers who are (or can be induced to be) interested in the subject of the advertisement. And they promise them a worthwhile reward for reading it.”
– Victor O. Schwab

Think about those two purposes of a headline:

To select the people who would be most interested in what you’re advertising
To promise them a reward for reading the ad

Most people who create ads never do either of those things, let alone both of them.

SOME good copywriters accomplish the first task, but only the GREAT copywriters also accomplish the second.

If you learned how to master those two things, your ads would outperform any of your competitors or fellow copywriters this year.

Do you see how these two things combine the 1st and 5th marketing fundamentals?

You’re writing an article to capture attention (1st marketing fundamental). But you’re making sure that the headline is written for select people (5th marketing fundamental).

(We’re not even halfway through the 12 marketing fundamentals you need to succeed in 2021 yet. But I couldn’t resist touching on that fact that combining these fundamentals will exponentially increase the impact of your marketing this year. I’ll explain more in future articles.)

Two Things Before You Go

Before you go, I want to mention two quick things:

I’m sorry. I haven’t had the chance to write my next story of how a popular brand achieved new levels of success after they found out about a new market. You’re not going to want to miss this one because their success came to them differently than the way it did in the Play-Doh story. I’ll see if I can get that story done by the end of the week.
If you like Victor O Schwab’s quote, you should read my whole article at MarketingInsiderGroup.com. You can read it here.

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February 11, 2021February 11, 2021

The Unique Selling Proposition of a Man Named Harry

If you have missed my previous articles on the importance of having a unique selling proposition (i.e. USP), then you can read them here:

Today, I want to share with you a powerful story of a man who personally tapped into the power of a USP.

The Story of a Man Named Harry

I never heard motivational speaker Bill Gove speak.

But I heard that he was considered the founder of the public speaking industry. I also heard that he was an amazing storyteller.

I’m about to share with you an example of the type of story that made him so special.

It’s a story of his that I came across that reveals a simple way one appliance store owner established a powerful brand, a brand that helped his store stand out from the rest.

It was so powerful that it even helped his store compete against the discount stores in his neighborhood.

Bill Gove told this story…

How Harry Competed With The Discount Stores

“Harry ran a small appliance store in Phoenix, Arizona. Harry was used to price-shopping by young couples. They would ask detailed questions about features, prices, and model numbers, and one of them always took notes.

“Harry knew that as soon as they left the store they were going to head for one of the discount appliance dealers to make comparisons.

“Nevertheless, Harry would patiently answer all their questions, even though it took more than a half-hour at times. But here’s where Harry really shines.”

Harry’s Surprising Response

Bill would continue by saying, “When the couple would announce that they were going to look around at some other places, Harry had a standard spiel to deliver. ‘I know that you’re looking for the best deal you can find,’ he would say.”

“‘I understand that, because I do the same thing myself. I know you’ll probably go down to Discount Dan’s to compare prices. I know I would. But after you’ve done that, I want you to think of one thing.

“‘When you buy from Discount Dan’s, you get an appliance–a good one, I know, because he sells the same appliances we do’.”

Now watch closely how Bill describes how Harry presents his USP (unique selling proposition) because it’s so powerful…

Harry’s Powerful USP

Bill shared that Harry would say, “‘But when you buy here, you get one thing you don’t get at Dan’s. You get me. I come with the deal. I stand behind what I sell. I want you to be happy with what you buy. I’ve been here 30 years. I learned the business from my Dad, and I hope to be able to give the business over to my daughter and son-in-law in a few years.

“‘So you know one thing for sure–when you buy an appliance from me, you get me with the deal. That means I’ll do everything I can to be sure you never regret doing business with me. That’s a guarantee.”

Then Bill said, “Harry would then wish the couple well and give them a quart of ice cream in appreciation of their stopping at his store.“

Bill Gove finished the story powerfully by saying, “Now how far do you think that couple is going to get with Harry’s speech ringing in their ears and a quart of ice cream on their hands in Phoenix, when it’s 110 degrees in the shade?”

Awesome story, isn’t it?

I don’t know if you realized this but there are six powerful unique selling proposition lessons that any company can learn from Harry.

Continue reading and you’ll discover what they are…

6 Brand Lessons From Harry That Can Help You Succeed

1. Offer a powerful guarantee.

People are scared to be ripped off or to look stupid. Not many have a lot of extra money to risk. That means that if you take away the risk, you’ll increase sales.

2. Know the questions your customers have and be prepared to effectively answer them.

Customers will have questions before they buy, even if they’re just simple ones like, “I want it. What’s the next step?” Do your best to learn their questions and how to powerfully answer them.

If prospects have too many unanswered questions, they’ll usually take their purchase elsewhere.

3. Don’t just sell a product or service. Attach who you are (or “who” your business is) to it.

This is the power of a brand. It’s the personality of a product that makes one product more appealing than another. It’s what (who) it represents. Don’t just focus on what your product or service is. Focus on who is offering it, whether that who is you or the personality your business represents.

4. Know what makes you/your business different from your competitors and make it clearly known to your customers.

Are you clear about what makes your business different from the others? Can you easily explain the difference to someone? If you can’t, you need to become clear and learn how to explain this to others.

5. Be a real human being interacting with another real human being.

Maybe at some point in the past people preferred buying from entities over people (if that was ever the case), but nowadays people want to buy from real people – people they know, like, trust, and can relate to.

Even if your business isn’t tied to your personality, make sure it has a personality. Make sure it’s human. Make sure your employees speak to your customers as one real person to another real person.

Understand your customers. Care about them and make sure that they know you understand and care about them!

6. Give and you’ll receive.

Do whatever you can to make the first move in the relationship with a potential customer. Don’t make them take the first step. Give them value, make their day before – or even whether – they purchase from you or not.

When you do these things, you’ll create a powerful brand, just like Harry.

The 5th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

That’s it for the 4th marketing fundamental. Next week, I’ll begin to reveal what the 5th marketing fundamental is.

Stay tuned. Subscribe below to be automatically be notified when it goes live.

In the meantime, if you want to catch up on the previous marketing fundamentals I’ve already revealed, then click here. (There are currently 21 previous articles in this series.)

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February 3, 2021February 10, 2021

14 Famous Unique Selling Proposition Examples You Can Use

In my last article, 4 Lessons About Unique Selling Propositions from the Man Who Made the Concept Popular, I revealed the four important things that Rosser Reeves said about USPs.

Today, instead of trying to teach you more about unique selling propositions, I thought I’d give you some examples of some powerful ones.

Some you might have heard of, some you haven’t. Some are USPs for new companies, some are for old brands.

Either way, if you study them closely, you’ll walk away with a deeper understanding of how to make your marketing or your brand stand out from your competition.

14 Famous Unique Selling Propositions Examples

I’ve shared a brief comment with each of these examples below.

But I want you to read these unique selling propositions with the four things that Reeves revealed in mind. That way, you will make your own discoveries and uncover your own insights.

1. Dominos Pizza – Old delivery guarantee: “30 minutes or it’s free.”

My Comment: This was a claim that no one else was making back then. If you were hungry and you wanted food now, then you knew where to get it.

2. NerdFitness.com – “We help nerds, misfits and mutants lose weight, get strong and get healthy permanently!”

My Comment: When most gyms are trying to attract athletes, they focused on a neglected group.

3. GEICO – “15 minutes could save you 15 percent or more on car insurance.”

My Comment: The genius of this claim is that it’s clear, simple, and very specific.

4. FedEx – Old guarantee: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.“

My Comment: When this claim was first made, it was an unheard of promise. And it was a promise that solved the need of many business people.

5. Schiltz Beer – Old campaign: They had a campaign that is now known as the “Purity” campaign. The campaigned basically went into detail about their brewing process. It explained the care that went into each step. It explained the science behind each step. It revealed all of the things that were meant to show why Schlitz was a “pure” beer.

My Comment: They were the first to point out things that many of the competitors also did. By claiming these things first, they stood out.

6. 7UP – Old slogan “The uncola.”

My Comment: Instead of trying to be like their competitors, they decided to emphasize what made them different.

7. Robinhood – “Investing for everyone.”

My Comment: Now that they’ve been in the news recently, I think this promise is stronger than ever.

8. Warby Parker – “Try 5 pairs for free at home.”

My Comment: They decided to address the problem that most people had: the difficulty of finding the right pair of glasses.

9. Head & Shoulders – “Clinically proven up to 100% dandruff protection.”

My Comment: They choose to be known for something that many other shampoos didn’t even talk about.

10. Palmolive Dishwashing Liquid – Old slogan: “It softens your hands while you do the dishes.”

My Comment: This slogan stood out because it suddenly made dishwashing liquid have a whole new purpose.

11. The Economist – “You’ve seen the news, why not discover the story.”

My Comment: I like this because it suggests that you’ll learn the behind-the-scenes stories that you won’t get anywhere else.

12. Tiffany & Co – “The right one is worth waiting for.”

My Comment: This is a creative way to express a double entendre that express their uniqueness and the uniqueness of the person you’re purchasing the jewelry for.

13. Ben & Jerry’s – “We make the best possible ice cream in the best possible way.”

My Comment: This is a great way to continue to remind consumers that they make amazing ice cream with a powerful purpose behind it.

14. Tuesday Morning – When this store first began, it was literally only open on Tuesdays.

My Comment: When most stores were trying to be more available, they chose a different strategy. By limiting the times customers could purchase from them, they stood out in the marketplace and made their company more memorable and desirable.

If you have any examples that I didn’t include, feel free to list them in the comments below.

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The 4th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

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February 2, 2021February 10, 2021

4 Lessons About Unique Selling Propositions from the Man Who Made the Concept Popular

How to Create a Truly Unique Selling Proposition

I’m about to reveal to you some things about creating a unique selling proposition that most of your competitors don’t know. Once you understand these things, it will help you to create a USP that is many times more powerful than your competition.

But in order to do that, you first need to know about the man behind the concept.

Rosser Reeves: The Man Behind One of the Most Important Activities Companies Must Constantly Engage In

Theodore Levitt, a professor at Harvard Business School, once described the importance of differentiation with these powerful words…

“Differentiation is one of the most important strategic and tactical activities in which companies must constantly engage.”

Do you know what I find so interesting about the concept of a unique selling proposition or point of difference?

Many companies these days think they understand the concept, but they don’t know the origin of the term.

And for that reason, they really don’t grasp the full meaning and potential of the concept.

I don’t want you to be like these companies that only know the general concept. I want you to understand the full meaning and power behind a unique selling proposition.

To do that, you need to know about the man who coined the term USP.

Who Was Rosser Reeves?

He was an American advertising executive who was a pioneer of television advertising. How good was he at what he did? Well, he generated millions for his clients.

Do you know what I’d say his own personal USP was?

He didn’t think companies should advertise just for name recognition. Instead, he believed the purpose of advertising is to sell.

In fact, he insisted that the purpose of an ad or commercial was to show off the value or unique selling proposition of a product.

He didn’t think that the purpose of an ad or commercial was just to be funny or clever.

So, what did Rosser Reeves actually say about the unique selling proposition? I found this quote below from him. In it, he shares some powerful thoughts about a USP.

Let me share this quote about the USP and then I’ll share some insights we can glean from it…

The Powerful Thing Rosser Reeves Said About the Unique Selling Proposition

4 Lessons About Unique Selling Propositions from the Man Who Made the Concept Popular

Now let me reveal four lessons we can learn from what Reeves said. To do that, let’s look closely at four things he said about USPs:

1. It should promise a specific benefit.

The mistake that some companies make is they don’t make any promise at all to their prospects. The mistake that other companies make is that they make a vague promise.

Why is that a problem? Because vague promises don’t stand out. How could they? When something is communicated in an unfocused or imprecise way, then its meaning isn’t clear.

Something unclear doesn’t stand out. Only a specific promise does.

If you want to harness the power of the 4th marketing fundamental, you need to make a specific promise to your prospects. That’s the first way to stand out and be different in the marketplace.

2. It must contain a claim the competition can’t or doesn’t offer.

Another mistake that some companies make is they just copy the promises of every other company in the market. That will never make a company different.

That means you need to start by asking and answering some important questions:

– What are all the claims that your competition is making in the marketplace?
– Is there a common theme? Are they trying to solve a common problem or relieve a common pain?
– What claim is not being made in the marketplace that your company can honestly make or that can be made about your product or service?
– What is the gap or blind spot that is being overlooked by your competitors? Is there a way to relieve the problems or pain in the marketplace that isn’t being offered? Or is there a problem or pain that is not being focused on at all?

If you feel stuck trying to answer these questions, then the next point might help.

3. It must express a uniqueness of the brand or the claim being made.

If you don’t feel like you can make a unique claim, in what other ways can your brand stand out?

You see, a unique claim is not the only way that your company, product, or service can be different and stand out. The other way is through your brand.

What makes your brand different than the others? You might not think that there are many ways to make your brand stand out, but there are actually 9 different ways you can do that.

I’m don’t have the time to go over all 9 of the different ways, but I will share three of them with you:

Personality or Brand – Who is the founder/CEO of your company or who represents your company? Do they make your company different? Examples: Steve Jobs & Wendy’s
Backstory –The story of how the company (or founder) got into this particular line of business. Examples: TOMs Shoes or Clif Bar
Experience – The experience people get from buying or using your product or service to get the end result they want. Examples: Disneyland and any “high end” restaurant

Hopefully, these will give you some ideas to get you started.

4. The claim must be strong enough to move the masses.

Wow. Now that’s setting the bar high, isn’t it? But before you just dismiss this completely, let’s think about what it says for a minute.

I think the key point is that you shouldn’t focus on a claim about your product or brand that just moves one person or a few people. You want to find one that hits the nerve of a large amount of people.

In other words, you want to find a claim that speaks to a universal need, desire, pain, or goal in the marketplace.

Look, I’ll admit something to you. It might not always be possible for you to literally come up with a unique selling proposition that moves the masses.

But if you don’t aim that high, you’ll fall so short of the power that the unique selling proposition could bring to your company and its marketing.

Now that you know the original concept of the unique selling proposition, you have insight that many companies have overlooked, which means you now have the opportunity to use it in a way that your competitors have no clue is even possible.

My hope is that you’ll take this insight and implement it to the fullest. By the way, if and when you do implement it, I’d love to hear about it.

If you missed my previous article, you can check it out at the link below:

The 4th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

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February 1, 2021February 10, 2021

The 4th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

On the first Monday in January, I began a series called “The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021.“

In my first article of the series, I laid an important foundation that I will continue to build on. In that article I said…

Based on some things I’ve been reading from the experts I follow, there are some interesting trends and predictions that are said to be coming our way in 2021.
These trends and predictions will be opportunities for people that know how to leverage them.
But I believe that the sweet spot in 2021 is the place where opportunity and the fundamentals meet.
You see, the people and companies that succeed the most are the ones that keep their eye out for opportunities and then take advantage of them by harnessing the fundamentals.
What fundamentals? The marketing fundamentals that have existed for at least 100 years and that will probably exist for at least another 100 years.
-Scott Aughtmon, The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021.

The First 3 Marketing Fundamentals:

The three marketing fundamentals that I’ve revealed so far are:

The first marketing fundamental is attention. Because without attention, there is no marketing.
The second marketing fundamental is attraction. Without attraction, all the work you put into capturing their attention will be wasted.
The third marketing fundamental is follow-up. Because two of the biggest mistakes many companies make are tied to follow-up. They don’t follow-up at all. They don’t follow-up enough.

The 4th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

The fourth marketing fundamental that you’re going to need in 2021 is the one that really has an impact on all of the marketing fundamentals I’ve revealed so far.

And honestly, it probably impacts all the fundamentals I’m still going to reveal.

What is the fourth marketing fundamental? It’s your unique selling proposition or USP. Some call this your point of difference or POD.

Whatever you call it, it’s a marketing fundamental you can’t overlook. Why?

Because if you’re ever going to have any chance of your prospects choosing your company, product, or service over your competition, then they have to understand something important.

Your prospects have to know WHY and HOW your business is different and better than any of the other choices.

I have two situations for you to imagine to help you see the need for this.

SITUATION #1

Imagine that you’re thirsty and want to buy a bottle of water. Now imagine a whole crowd of people who all look and sound similar. They are even dressed similarly.

They are all yelling your name, holding up water bottles, and telling you they have what you want! Which one are you going to choose?

It’s hard to decide, isn’t it? It’s actually pretty confusing. You’ll probably pick the closest and/or the loudest one.

Let’s look at the next situation and see how different it is…

SITUATION #2

Now imagine the same situation and the same crowd yelling out the same things. But suddenly you look closer at the crowd and you see one guy who is dressed differently.

He’s yelling your name too, but he’s saying something different. He’s telling you that his water is chilled at exactly 40ºF to make it extremely refreshing. He tells you that the others are just at room temperature.

He also tells you that his water comes from a pure spring at the top of a mountain and is filtered to remove any impurities. He tells you that even though it is filtered, it still maintains the important minerals your body needs.

He also mentions that all of the others are offering just filtered and bottled tap water. He tells you that his water is priced at the same as the others, but that it will be much more refreshing and helpful for your body.

Which one are you going to choose now? The one guy who is different! Why? Because you know why/how what he is offering is different and better than the others.

This is what it’s like when we make it clear to our prospects why/how we’re different from the competition.

The Van with the Generic Sign

Many years ago, I was driving through a city and saw a van with a generic sign on its door that just said, “Air conditioning and heating service.’ It also had a phone number on the sign that you could call.

I couldn’t believe that was all it said! Did they think someone who needed that service was going to see the van a scream, “YES! I finally found an A/C and heating service!” And then call them right away?

In a small town, with no competition for miles around, that might work. But it’s not going to work in most other areas! Why didn’t this guy at least have his name on A/C & heating sign? Something at least like, “Steve Smith’s A/C& Heating service?”

Better yet, why didn’t this guy ALSO have something on the sign that explained how his service was unique. He could’ve had something like, “We offer the guaranteed best-priced services that are fully guaranteed for 1 year!”

That would’ve been much more powerful and attractive to prospects looking for his services. My prediction is that his business is no longer in existence.

Successful companies make it very clear that their companies are different than the competition. They clearly spell out how their product or service is better/different.

If you want your company to have a chance of succeeding, then prospects must know how you’re different than other companies selling the same things.

USP or POD Applied to the Other Fundamentals

But remember what I said earlier? I said that this also applies to the previous marketing fundamentals. Well, think about that for a second and then answer these questions:

If you want to capture attention, do you think something different or the same will do it best?
If you want to capture attraction, do you think something different or the same will do it best?
If you want to capture attention with your follow-up, do you think something different or the same will do it best?

You know the answer.

Do you now see why I’ve said a USP or POD is so important?
I’ve mentioned the importance of your prospects knowing how your company or product is different or better is than the competition.

But the reality is that in this world that’s crowded with competition in every vertical, one of these things is more important than the other.

The short video below gives a pretty powerful argument as to why different is better than better.

Sally Hoghead – Why Different is Better Than Better

VIDEO DESCRIPTION: It’s no longer enough to be good, or better, or even the best. Now the question is…what makes you DIFFERENT? Sally Hogshead, New York Times Bestselling author, Hall of Fame Speaker, and creator of the Fascinate test speaks on the subject of why DIFFERENT is better than BETTER.

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January 29, 2021February 10, 2021

3 Unique Reasons You Need to Follow-Up with Prospects Who Aren’t Ready to Buy Today

One of the reasons your prospects might not be ready, willing, or able to purchase from you today is because they’re dealing with a problem.

It doesn’t matter what the problem actually is. It’s too distracting, annoying, or painful for them to think of anything else. It’s too much of a pain to think about making any decisions. So, instead, they delay purchasing from you today.

That’s why follow-up is so important.

Let me tell you a quick story about a big problem that a farmer had and to reveal to you more of what I mean…

The Old Farmer and the Large Rock

An old farmer had a large rock in the middle of his field.

Instead of getting rid of it, he plowed around that large rock for years.

He did this because he’d broken several plowshares and a cultivator on it.

After breaking another plowshare one fall, and remembering all the trouble the rock had caused him through the years, he finally determined to do something about it.

He was determined to pull it up and get it out of his field, so one day he grabbed a crowbar.

When he put his crowbar under the rock, he was surprised to discover that it was only about six inches thick and that he could break it up easily.

As he was carting it away he had to smile, remembering all the trouble that the rock had caused him and how easy it would have been to get rid of it sooner.

Most of us do the same thing with our problems.

Instead of really dealing with them, we try to ignore them. We try to work around them.

As I mentioned yesterday, we do anything we can to procrastinate instead of dealing with them. But what does this story have to do with the importance of following up with your prospects?

I told you that story because your prospect has at least one problem that they’ve been dealing with for a long time, just like this farmer.

They haven’t dealt with the problem. They’ve instead tried to ignore it or work around it. And that leads to the whole reason you need to follow-up.

I know that might sound crazy. If they have a big problem and can’t think about buying right now, why should anyone follow-up?

Let me give you three very important reasons.

Three Reasons You Need to Follow-Up with Prospects Who Aren’t Ready to Buy Today

If your prospect has a big problem and can’t think about buying right now, here are three reasons why you need to follow-up:

1. You want to be there when they finally deal with it.

When they finally realize it wasn’t as big of a deal as they thought and they finally deal with it, they will finally be ready to make the decision about purchasing what you offer from someone.

You want to be the someone who is still there when they’re ready.

2. You can help them to overcome their problem faster.

You can be the one to show them that the big rock in their life really isn’t that big. Not only will that help them be free of it much sooner, but you’ll also stand out from the competition because you relieved their pain.

(You’ll also feel good about being able to help them.)

Before I get to the third reason you need to follow-up with prospects who are dealing with a big problem, I need to talk to you about how we all see problems.

Our Problem With Problems

Actually dealing with our problems is only one of our problems with problems. (Try saying that 5 times fast!)

How well you can solve problems in your business or your life all depends on how you view your problems.

Many years ago, I came across a powerful perspective on problems while reading leadership expert John Maxwell’s blog.

He revealed this interesting perspective on how to view problems. He said…

“Problems always bring opportunities, and opportunities always bring problems. The two go hand in hand. If we can learn to appreciate that truth, we have a real advantage in life.“
– John Maxwell

It’s so easy to naturally see problems as negative things.

I do it. I am sure you do too. That means that your prospects do the same thing. And that leads us to the third reason you need to follow-up with them.

3. You need to show them the opportunity even in the middle of their problem.

You do this by answering these questions:

How can you help them to stop seeing their problem as a negative thing?
How can you help them see it as a positive thing?

But here’s the key.

Don’t do it just to get them to buy something. Don’t it to really help them.
When you have the mindset of following up with your prospects so you can actually help them, you will see follow-up in a whole different light.

Not only that, but your prospects will see you in a whole different light. When they do, some of them will gladly purchase from you.

Some of the ones who don’t purchase from you will tell all of their friends about your company and your product.

But whether they buy from you or not, or tell others about you or not, the best thing is you will have helped someone overcome their problem… and possibly gained a friend.

Now that you know these things, you should feel much better about following up and more confident about how to do it.

Next week, we’ll begin looking at the 4th marketing fundamental you need to succeed in 2021. Stay tuned.

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January 28, 2021January 28, 2021

Why Your Prospects NEED You to Follow-Up with Them

If you give me a few minutes, I’m about to reveal the reason you must follow-up with your prospects, if you care about them.

This might surprise you but the reason you must follow-up with them is not for your benefit, but for theirs.

Before I explain, let me ask you a few questions:

How many of the things that you KNOW you should do, are you currently, actually doing?
How many goals have you set for yourself that you haven’t achieved yet?

I don’t know you but let me make some predictions about your answers:

You probably aren’t doing all, or maybe not even many, of the things that you know you should be doing.
You probably have not achieved some, maybe not even many, of the goals you’ve set for yourself.

My bonus answer to a question I didn’t ask you: How do you feel about not doing all you know you should do and not achieving some of your goals? You feel bad about it all.

How’d I do? Good? Well, thanks.
No, I’m not psychic. The reason I knew these were your answers is because they’re MY answers.

You and I have a similar problem: We procrastinate.
Why? Because we’re scared.
Of failure. Maybe even more afraid of success.

So we keep putting off things, even important things we know we should do and want to do.

And this is the important part…
Your prospects are just like you and me.

They aren’t doing everything they know they should, and they aren’t achieving all the goals they have hoped to.

That’s why they NEED you to follow-up with them.
(Of course, that’s assuming your product or service is something that can really help them.)

They need you to follow-up because they’ve been procrastinating like we have.
They need you to follow-up because they’ve been delaying the decision about buying your product or service, even though they want to purchase it.
They need you to follow-up because they’re afraid your company or your product/service is not what you say you are. They’re scared you are not the answer to their problems.
They need you to follow-up because they might be even more afraid that your company or your product/service ARE all that you say you are. They’re scared that you do have the answer to their problems. And they’re not sure they’re really ready to go to the next level.

There are probably many other reasons why they need you to follow-up.

So, the next time you’re procrastinating and putting off creating that lead magnet, the next time you’re procrastinating and not emailing your leads – because you’re afraid of failure or success, remember you’re not alone.

I’m like you. And more importantly, those prospects you’re afraid to create that lead magnet for, or afraid to email, are like you.

And they need you to follow-up. Otherwise, they will never get unstuck.

The video below from AsapSCIENCE can help you to understand your and your prospect’s problem with procrastination.

The Science of Procrastination – This Is WHY You Do It (VIDEO)

If you want to know more of the reasons WHY you and your prospects procrastinate – and how to stop, watch this awesome video below.

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January 27, 2021January 27, 2021

How to Follow-Up with Prospects Without Being Annoying

The Stone Cutter’s Secret

In a Reader’s Digest issue, Jacob Riis just hinted at the invisible quality I want to talk to you about today. See if you can tell what this invisible quality is from what he said…

“I look at a stone cutter hammering away at a rock a hundred times without so much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the 101st blow, it splits in two. I know it was not the one blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”
Jacob Riis in Reader’s Digest

Persistence is the invisible quality you need to possess if you want to see success with follow up, the third marketing fundamental. (Read more about the third marketing fundamental here.)

You must be persistent in following up in your efforts to gain attention, attract your prospects, and convert them into customers.

The question is: How do you follow-up with prospects without being annoying?

How to Effectively Follow-up with Your Potential Customers and Clients

When it comes to following up with the people you hope to convert to customers or clients, there are two groups you will focus on:

Prospects – When I say prospects, I’m talking about anyone who isn’t on one of your email lists. They’re not an email subscriber or they haven’t signed up for any of the lead magnets you offer. They might know about your company or products. They might not. They might have consumed your articles, blog posts, podcast, or videos or not.
Leads – When I say leads, I’m talking about anyone who is on one of your email lists. They have raised their hand and have shown enough interest to be willing to exchange their contact info with you.

Alright, now that that is clear, let me share with you ways that you can follow-up effectively with prospects or leads.

Follow-Up Tactics for Prospects

The key to following up with prospects is to continue to stay in front of them until they are ready to become a lead or a customer.

The most effective way to do this is through the use of content marketing. Why is content marketing so effective at multiple marketing touches with prospects?

Have you ever had a salesperson constantly contact you and ask you if you’re ready to buy? Annoying, huh?

Well, content marketing allows you to continue to be in front of prospects and have something more to say than just asking, “Wanna buy from us now!?!”

It helps you to not sound like (or feel like) that annoying salesperson.

Content marketing enables you to provide helpful information so that you’re viewed as an expert, not a pest.

Follow-Up Tactics for Leads

The key to following up with leads is to continue to provide them with content related to the lead magnet they originally signed up for.

While in the process of providing that information, you want to continue to educate them, encourage them, and explain to them why and how your solution is the one they’re looking for.

The most effective way to do this is through the use of email marketing. Why is email marketing so effective at multiple marketing touches with leads?

Have you ever met someone in a loud, crowded room (pre-COVID days) and tried to have a conversation with them? It wasn’t easy, was it?

But what if you got their contact info and texted or called them later? That’s a whole different story. Now your conversation isn’t drowned out by the distractions of a crowded and noisy room.

It’s now much easier to have a one-on-one conversation. That’s how you can build a friendship with someone whose messages and calls you look forward to.

Well, if you use email marketing effectively, it will enable you to speak one-on-one with your leads, through a channel that is much less crowded and noisy, instead of trying to communicate through the crowded space known as the internet.

Again, if you use email marketing effectively, your leads will look forward to your emails. They begin to enter into a relationship with you where they start to know, like, and trust.

When that happens, it’s only a matter of time (while you tap into the invisible quality of persistence) until they become a customer.

Two Resources to Help You Use Email Marketing to Effectively Follow-up with Leads

I don’t have the time in this article to go into all the details of what it takes to use email marketing effectively so that your leads will get your messages and even look forward to them.

But I can point you to two resources that can help you with that…

1) Case Study: How Brian Dean (From Backlinko) Built a Massive Email List (and How You Can Too)

How Brian Dean Built A Massive Email List And How You Can Too

Back in March of 2020, I wrote an article that revealed how SEO expert, Brian Dean, focuses on building an email list.

Yes, you read that right. He’s a SEO expert whose secret to success is building an email list of prospects that he can follow-up with.

You can read my case study that reveals what I discovered when I signed up for Brian’s lead magnet. You can see it here.

How to Grow Your Business with Email Marketing

Aweber is the company I use for my email marketing. It allows me to easily create different email lists for different lead magnets. It also makes it easy for me to create automated email nurture follow-up sequences and send email broadcasts.

They’ve put together a guide called “How to Grow Your Business with Email Marketing.”

You’ll learn everything you need to know to get started with email marketing.
You’ll walk away knowing how to:

Create sign up forms and landing pages
Write and design beautiful emails
Build your email list in creative ways
Measure email performance
Avoid the spam folder

Plus, you’ll get access to tons of fantastic templates that help you get up and running quickly.

You can learn more about the guide and sign-up to get access to it by clicking here.

*AFFILIATE DISCLAIMER: I proudly feature affiliate links for some products that I love. It adds no extra cost to you but enables me to earn a commission if you purchase. This is just one way I can continue to provide you with valuable information on this site.

Want to Catch Up on This Series?

If you missed the previous articles, you can go to this page I’ve created for the series.

In case you’re wondering, there are currently 15 previous in this series.

January 25, 2021January 24, 2021

The “Unusual” Lead Magnet Behind the Most Popular Music Streaming Service

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January 22, 2021February 10, 2021

How One Company Used an “Unusual” Lead Magnet to Succeed in the Streaming Wars

With so many major media companies entering the streaming wars, what strategy would you use to succeed?

Well, one company decided to use an “unusual” lead magnet to enter the streaming wars. What was the result?

They reached #13 on PCMag’s “The Best Video Streaming Services for 2021” list.
They are ranked at the #4 spot on PCMag’s “The Best Free Video Streaming Services for 2021” list.
They made the #7 spot on CNET’s “Best free TV streaming services: Peacock, Plex, Pluto TV, Roku, IMDb TV, Crackle and more.”
They are ranked #17 on Consumer Report’s “Guide to Free Streaming Video Services” (beating out YouTube).
They ended up getting purchased for $440 million.

Today, I’ll share with you the “unusual” lead magnet they used and show you the path they took to achieve success.

NOTE: If you’ve read my previous articles in this current series, you can skip the next section.

Haven’t Read Previous Articles? Read This – Lead Magnets: The Fundamental Element Today’s Greatest Tech Companies Have Been Built On

As I mentioned in my previous article, lead generation and lead magnets could change your business forever. Why do I say this?

Because the greatest tech companies around today have actually been built using lead magnets.

The key thing to understand is that they didn’t do that by using lead magnets in the usual way. They’ve used them in an unusual way.

In a previous article, I also shared with you my definition of a lead magnet.

My Definition of a Lead Magnet: A lead magnet is something valuable that you offer to your ideal prospects in exchange for something of theirs that you consider valuable (usually information of some kind).
From Lead Magnets: The Fundamental Element Today’s Greatest Tech Companies Have Been Built On

I told you that when you see this definition, you need to realize that a lead magnet can be much more than a PDF file.
You need to realize that prospects possess something much more valuable than just an email address they can exchange with you.

In my previous two articles, I showed you how Facebook and Canva both built such successful businesses by using a very unusual way to think of and implement lead magnets.

Tubi: An “Unusual” Lead Magnet That Led to a $400 Million Acquisition

TubiTV.com

Today, I want to show you another company that has used lead magnets in an “unusual” way.

But, unlike the other two companies, this one achieved success by applying this “unusual” understanding of lead magnets to streaming TV.

By taking a look at this story, it will help you see that what I’m sharing with you can be applied to all sorts of businesses.

The company I want to talk to you about today is Tubi TV.

In case you haven’t heard of it, Tubi is a free video streaming service that enables users to watch over 20,000 movies and television shows from nearly every major Hollywood studio.

Users can watch this content in multiple ways:

Through iOS and Android apps on your smartphone
Through apps available on Roku, Samsung TV, Apple TV, Android TV, Sony, Vizio Smart TVs, Xbox, and PlayStation
Or even through your web browser via your laptop or tablet

Now, let’s take a closer look at what their unusual lead magnet is…

Tubi’s Lead Generation Strategy That Led to Their Incredible Success

(IMPORTANT: Everything I’m about to share with you about their strategy is just from observations I’ve made as an outsider. I have no insider information.)

Stage 1: They offered a free video streaming service to anyone – no email required.

You can think of this first stage as the “free sample” stage. Because as you will notice, Tubi lets users access their content without offering anything valuable in exchange.

In other words, you don’t even need to create an account with them to view the TV shows and movies. One thing that Tubi does do at this stage, which makes them stand out, is they have some really unique categories that they list their content under.

Categories such as:

“Something Completely Different”
“Not on Netflix”
“Leaving Soon”
“Only Free on Tubi”
“Highly Rated on Rotten Tomatoes”
and more

The way they categorize their content makes it easier to sift through, so you can find what you like.

You might be wondering. Why would they let users view their content without asking for anything from those users? Because the main way Tubi makes money is from ad revenue. That means the larger audience they have, the more revenue they make.

If they would have just stopped at this stage, then they wouldn’t have qualified as a company that used an unusual lead magnet.

But they didn’t stop there.

Stage 2: In exchange for your email address, you can access the free content on all of your devices, sync your list, and continue watching anywhere.

They ask for your first and last name, an email address, a password, date of birth, and gender.

But actually, I hear that you can sign-up with only your first name and email address. The rest of the info is optional. You also have the option to sign-up via Facebook or Google sign-in.

Pay close attention because this is where their choice to let users have free access becomes an actual incentive for people to sign-up. You see, the more you use Tubi, the more an account becomes attractive to you.

Why? Here are three reasons:

1. You can create a watchlist.
The more you use Tubi, the more you will discover things you want to watch later. But if you don’t give them your email address, you will just have to remember these things.

In fact, when you try to add something to your list without an account, you get a prompt that encourages you to sign-up. (See image below.)

2. You get recommendations based on your viewing habits.
Once you create an account, you give Tubi a better way to make recommendations that actually match the things you like to watch. This saves you from having to manually find all the content you’d actually like.

3. You can access the free content on all of your devices, sync your list, and continue watching anywhere.

This might not seem like a very compelling reason, but it’s the reason I finally ended up signing up for an account.

The more that a person uses Tubi (the power of that first stage in action), the more this becomes a really valuable incentive for a user.

How Tubi’s Lead Generation Model Is Just a Variation of Facebook’s Model

If you remember in my previous post, Lead Magnets: The Fundamental Element Today’s Greatest Tech Companies Have Been Built On, I told you that Facebook offered “connection” as their lead magnet.

They did that until they gathered enough users to be able to sell other companies the chance to advertise to them. That’s how Facebook made so much money and became such a valuable company.

Now think about it.

Tubi had the same basic lead model: gather a bunch of users so that companies will pay you to advertise to them.

But Tubi implemented that lead generation model in two different ways:

Instead of relying on users to create content, like Facebook did, Tubi relied on media companies to provide the content.
Instead of making their content only available to people with accounts, like Facebook did, Tubi made the same content available to people with or without an account.

How Effective Has Tubi’s Variation of This Lead Magnet Model Been?

When I say that Tubi achieved success by using an “unusual” lead magnet, I don’t mean that other companies haven’t offered ad-supported TV streaming.

Other companies have used this model. Tubi has just been more successful:

Pluto has 28.4 million users
Vudu has 25 million users
Crackle has 26 million users
Roku has 27 million users

How many users does Tubi have? In August of 2020, Tubi announced that it had reached 33 million users – an increase of 65% year-over-year.

Why have they been so successful? I believe the reason they’ve been so successful is because of how well they’ve implemented this lead generation model.

The stats that I began this article with should prove that this isn’t just a personal opinion. But if you want more proof of how successful they’ve been at the implementation of this lead gen model, check this out…

Further Proof of Tubi’s Success

According to an article on TheVerge.com….

“Fox Corporation has acquired ad-supported streaming platform Tubi for $440 million, bringing more than 20,000 movies and shows to the platform.”
– From Fox buys Tubi for $440 million as it attempts to join the streaming wars

You read that right.

They’ve done such a great job at implementing their “unusual” lead magnet that Fox Corporation (no longer connected with 20th Century Fox) decided they were worth $400 million. That’s how valuable an “unusual” lead magnet, and the list of prospects it can attract, can be.

In Fox Corp’s press release, they revealed some of the reasoning behind their purchase…

“The acquisition of Tubi underscores FOX’s long-term strategic initiatives to broaden and enhance FOX’s direct-to-consumer digital reach and engagement.

“Tubi brings to FOX an expanded consumer offering with a sizable, younger-skewing and directly connected user base that spends over 160 million hours per month watching content on the service.

“Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fox Corporation, Lachlan Murdoch commented: ‘Tubi will immediately expand our direct-to-consumer audience and capabilities and will provide our advertising partners with more opportunities to reach audiences at scale. Importantly, coupled with the combined power of FOX’s existing networks, Tubi provides a substantial base from which we will drive long-term growth in the direct-to-consumer arena.'”

IMPORTANT INSIGHT:
I won’t get into this in this article, but I do want to point out something important that was repeated over and over in the quote above: “direct-to-consumer,” “directly connected user base,” and “direct-to-consumer arena.”

Fox Corporation, realizes the benefit of having direct access to a list or user base of consumers. That’s a benefit direct response marketers have known for at least 100 years.

In this disjointed and distracted world, more and more major corporations are coming to this realization. I’ll have to go deeper on this point in some other format in the future, but this is one of the most important reasons why you should focus on attracting leads in 2021. It allows you to speak directly to your leads.

Tubi’s Example Applied to My Lead Magnet Definition

Another reason I’m calling it an “unusual” magnet is because Tubi didn’t choose to go the way that many of the big-name streaming services have.

They didn’t decide to charge for their content. Instead, they decided to offer an “unusual lead magnet” in exchange for something valuable.

Let’s take my definition and plug in Tubi’s example. Then you’ll see their whole strategy at its simplest level:

Something valuable that you offer your ideal prospects: Tubi offered free access to TV shows and movies. (Canva offered the ability to create great designs.)
In exchange for something of theirs that you consider valuable: When a user creates an account, they are trading more than just their email. They’re also giving Tubi the ability to track their viewing habits. That made Tubi such a valuable asset, Fox Corp was willing to pay hundreds of millions for it.

Many More Successful Tech Companies Have Used an “Unusual” Lead Magnet

I’ve now shared three examples of extremely successful tech companies that have used “unusual” lead magnet.

You’ve now seen three different businesses built off of just two different lead generation models.

Have I finally proven to you that many successful companies really have built their business models off of the second marketing fundamental (aka attraction)?

I hope so.

Because, as I’ve said, when you understand lead magnets in this deeper way, the right lead magnet really could be worth millions, if not billions of dollars to you.

I still have 9 other very successful tech companies that I’ve documented that have used lead generation and lead magnets in an “unusual” way to build their company.

I need to decide what I will do with this information. Maybe I’ll offer another example via a lead magnet in my member’s resource area? 🙂

Then maybe I’ll later share the other examples through some paid option. I’ll let you know more once I decide.

I still need to get to my 10 other marketing fundamentals that you’ll need to succeed in 2021. So I’m going to move on to the next one next week.

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January 21, 2021January 21, 2021

10 Irresistible Lead Magnets to Help You to Grow Your List Today

I’m sorry but I still need some more time to finish my article “How One Company Used an “Unusual” Lead Magnet to Succeed in the Streaming Wars.”

It took me longer than I thought to get all my thoughts put down.

Now I want to take the time to edit and proof it. That way I can make it as helpful for you as possible.

Don’t worry. It will be ready tomorrow.

In the meantime, I want to offer you a cheat sheet to help you create traditional lead magnets (which are still very effective).

In other words, I want to offer you a cheat sheet to help you make effective lead magnets in the usual way people think of lead magnets.

For Member’s Only: Cheat Sheet with 10 Types of Lead Magnets That Will Help You Grow Your List

If you want to grow an email list of prospects, then you’re going to have to give people some reason or incentive to sign-up.

Otherwise, your efforts won’t be very effective. In fact, you will probably repel people away instead of attracting them.

To create an effective lead magnet, it must have three things:

An attractive topic or subject your prospects see as valuable
The topic or subject must be presented in an appealing way
A format that your prospects see as valuable.

I’ll be honest with you. I can’t quickly show you how to do the first two things on that list. (If you keep coming back to this site, you’ll learn those things over time.)

But I can show you effective formats or types of lead magnets that you can put your content into. To do this, I’ve put together a cheat sheet of 10 irresistible lead magnets.

You can use this list to brainstorm the format you want to put your content in, so you can begin offering it right away.

If you’d like to access this cheat sheet, you just need to join my member’s resource area. It’s free.

Click here to become a free member now.

P.S. Yes, I did just offer you a lead magnet about lead magnets. That’s pretty meta of me, isn’t it? 🙂

January 20, 2021January 20, 2021

This is Why Many Companies Ignore Lead Magnets

Why do many companies ignore lead magnets? If you surveyed the companies that ignore lead magnets, I bet you’d find they’re doing this for three main reasons:

They’re too focused on making sales today to focus on tomorrow’s sales.
They’re too busy taking care of their current customers.
They’re too busy managing all of the day-to-day tasks of running a company.

By ignoring lead magnets, these companies are unintentionally missing the opportunity to:

Build an email list they can make offers to
Gain trust with their prospects
Establish their company as a leader in their industry
And more

If you don’t want to be one of the companies making this fatal mistake, keep in mind the wisdom of loggers.

Yes, you read that correctly, the wisdom of loggers.

More Trees in 2021 Than 1921?

“By 1997, forest growth exceeded harvest by 42 percent and the volume of forest growth was 380 percent greater than it had been in 1920.”
From FAO – Northwest American Forrest Commission

Did you know that for every tree that loggers cut down they plant four seedlings?

Because of this practice, there are more trees now than there were in 1921!

If you think about it, this is a very smart practice. Because without new trees, loggers have no future.

That made me think.

Lead Magnets Are the Seeds That Lead to a Harvest in the Future

As I said in my previous article, “Lead magnets and lead generation are your way to secure your future, today.”

Using lead magnets today is, in a sense, planting seeds that you can harvest tomorrow.

When you think of it like this, how many companies are wise enough to do the same thing as these loggers? Don’t get me wrong.

Many companies start by focusing on doing everything they can to get customers or clients… until they start showing up.

Then, once they start showing up, something interesting happens.

They stop focusing on getting them (or lessen that focus) and begin to concentrate on helping those customers or clients.

Now, obviously, you need to focus on your customers or clients. I would never tell you not to do that. But think about it.

What will eventually happen to you if you stop focusing on getting new leads that you can grow (aka nurture) into customers?

That’s right. You’ll end up like unwise loggers.

You’ll soon have no future.

P.S. What I just shared doesn’t just apply to companies. It applies to schools, universities, doctors, hospitals, dentists, restaurants, etc.

P.P.S. I’m still working on my next article focused on “unusual” lead magnets, but I needed more time to finish it. Stay tuned. My article will be called “How One Company Used an “Unusual” Lead Magnet to Succeed in the Streaming Wars.“

January 18, 2021February 10, 2021

The Unusual Lead Magnet Canva Used to Build a Company Worth $60 Billion

A Brief Review – Lead Magnets: The Fundamental Element Today’s Greatest Tech Companies Have Been Built On

As I mentioned in my previous article, lead generation and lead magnets could change your business forever.

The greatest tech companies that are around today have actually been built using lead magnets.

But they haven’t used lead magnets in the usual way. They’ve used them in an unusual way.

In my last article, I also shared with you my definition of a lead magnet.

My Definition of a Lead Magnet: A lead magnet is something valuable that you offer to your ideal prospects in exchange for something of theirs that you consider valuable (usually information of some kind).
From Lead Magnets: The Fundamental Element Today’s Greatest Tech Companies Have Been Built On

I told you that when you see this definition, you need to realize that a lead magnet can be much more than a PDF file.
You need to realize that prospects possess something much more valuable than just an email address they can exchange with you.

Then I showed you how Facebook built one of the most successful businesses around by using a very unusual way to think of and implement lead magnets.

Canva: Another Company That Used Lead Magnets in an Unusual Way

Today, I want to show you another company that has used lead magnets in an unusual way.

They used the same basic understanding of a lead magnet that I just shared with you.
But they built a different business model off of it.

The company I want to talk to you about today is Canva.

In case you’ve never heard of it, Canva is a website or an app that enables you to create graphic designs. You might be creating social media assets, website assets, or even posters or pdfs.

And you can do all of this for free.

So what is the unusual lead magnet that they offer?

Canva’s 4-Stage Lead Generation Strategy That Lead to Their Incredible Success

(IMPORTANT: Everything I’m about to share with you about their strategy is just from observations I’ve made as an outsider. I have no insider information.)

Stage 1: They offered the ability for non-designers to design professional-looking graphics very easily.

This is how the first stage of their lead magnet strategy worked. In other words, this was the “lead magnet” that they chose to offer people.

Their Lead Magnet’s Promise: Give us your email address and we will make it easy for you to create graphics at no cost.

And what an amazing promise it is!

In exchange for your email address, you get:

Access to over 250,000 free templates
Over 100 design types such as social media posts, presentations, letters, and more
Hundreds of thousands of free photos and graphics
You can invite up to 4 members to your Canva team for free.
You can collaborate and comment in real-time.
And you get five GB of cloud storage.

How Canva’s Lead Generation Model is Different Than Facebook’s Model

Now let me point out some important things.

Facebook’s purpose was to gather a bunch of leads so that one day they could make money by letting businesses and companies advertise to these people.

Canva had a different plan.
Canva’s plan was to offer you as many features as possible for free. But that’s not all. They wanted to make it as easy as possible to use these features to achieve success.

Once the user achieved success, that’s when their revenue plan kicked in.

Stage 2: Offer better or additional images, graphics, and more for a small price.

Let’s say you’re creating a graphic with Canva and you’re not satisfied with the pictures they offer for free. For just $1, you could purchase one of their better quality images.

Did you catch that?

They aren’t trying to make a large sale off of a small amount of people.
They want to make a small sale off of a large amount of people.

In fact, they don’t just want to make one small sale from a large amount of people. They want to make a bunch of small sales from a bunch of people.

How I Accidentally Became a Paying Customer

Originally, I didn’t sign up to use Canva with a plan to spend any money. I was just going to use the free tools, images, etc.

How did I end up becoming a paying customer? It was just too easy to spend $1.

After I purchased the first time, it made purchasing the second time easier… and the third time even easier. You get the point.

As an example, let’s use my “accidental purchase” history with Canva from 2020.

Over the year 2020, I spent $10 with Canva. That’s not a lot. I’ve spent more with them in previous years.

But let’s use it as an example because it’s from someone that didn’t plan on spending any money. Imagine how much was spent by someone who planned to spend a little extra on the graphics and pictures they wanted.

Now think about it.

Canva has 30 million users. If each of those users just unintentionally spent $10, like I did, that means Canva probably made AT LEAST $300 million last year.

Let me point something out, in case you missed it.

Canva Didn’t Do What Other Companies Selling Images Would’ve Done

Instead of just trying to sell me images, templates, or designs that I might want to use, they offered me a lead magnet.

They offered me this lead magnet in the form of a free tool, a tool to enable me to do something I desired to do: create better-looking designs.

Then, once I began using their tool and had the need for free images and graphics, they offered me some better images to purchase.

Stage 3: Offer users a chance to purchase access to a Pro Level.

Now, pay close attention. Because things are about to get good.
The third stage of their strategy was to offer what they call the “Pro Level.”

For $12.95 a month, you get:

Everything that I already mentioned in the free version
Plus, you can create one brand kit and upload your own fonts and logos.
You can use a special feature that’s not available for the free members. It’s called the “One-click design magic resize tool.” If you’ve ever created a design in Canva and wanted to resize it, because you realized you needed it in a different format, then you realize how valuable that tool is.
But wait there’s more… 🙂
You get over 420,000 free templates with new designs daily.
You also get over $75 million premium stock photos, videos, audio, and graphics that are free to use.
You can save designs as templates for your team to use.
Instead of 5 GB of storage, you get 100 GB.
You can schedule social media content for 7 platforms.
And all of this can be used by up to 5 members of your Canva team.

Think about the power of this additional offer.

A certain number of people, like me, signed up to try their free tools. They eventually decided to purchase a $1 image, and another, and another.

These users began spending so much on $1 images – and were getting so much value from Canva – this $12.95 offer was a no-brainer.

By implementing that simple offer, they moved people up the value ladder and locked in a guaranteed monthly revenue from a certain percentage of people.

(Listen to this “Marketing Secrets” episode from Russell Brunson and learn more about what a value ladder is: The Primary Question That Fuels Your Value Ladder.)

Do you see how adding that “Pro Level” boosted their sales and stabilized their monthly revenue?

Well, they didn’t stop there…

Stage 4: Offer more levels for larger companies to purchase.

Canva realized that there were probably users out there who required many more users – large companies.

That’s why they added higher-priced levels.

If you have 10 members on your team, it’s $77.70 a month.
If you have 15 people on your team, it’s $142.45 a month (and $9.50 more per person a month).
Or if you have up to 50 people, you can pay $595.70 (and $11.91 per person more than 50).

I didn’t even realize this until I started researching, but they actually have a Canva Enterprise level.

I won’t go into all the details that come with purchasing that level, but it provides a bunch of tools that an Enterprise level company would want to have for their team.

The cost? $30 a month per member.

How Effective Their Lead Magnet Model Has Been

Do you want to know how successful this lead generation model has been?

An article on TechCrunch.com, “Canva raises $60 million on a $6 billion valuation,” revealed this surprising fact about the company…

“Sydney-based Canva, the design platform for non-designers, has today announced the close of a $60 million funding round, bringing its valuation to $6 billion, according to the company.
“The startup has raised a total of more than $300 million, including this latest round of financing, from investors like Bond, General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital China, Felicis Ventures and Blackbird Ventures.”
From Canva raises $60 million on a $6 billion valuation by Jordan Crook

In my last article, I said something that some of you probably thought was an exaggeration.

I said, “That means that when you understand lead magnets in this deeper way, you’ll realize that the right lead magnet is worth millions, if not billions of dollars.“

I think after revealing Facebook and Canva’s examples, you now see that I wasn’t exaggerating at all.

Canva’s Example Applied to My Lead Magnet Definition

Let’s take my definition and plug in Canva’s example. That way I can help you see their whole strategy more clearly and simply:

Something valuable that you offer your ideal prospects: Canva offered the ability for non-designers to easily design professional-looking graphics. (Facebook offered “connection” as their lead magnet. Canva offers the ability to create great designs as their lead magnet.)
In exchange for something of theirs that you consider valuable: Canva got the user’s email address, but they got much more than that. They were able to build databases of people who had voluntarily shown their need for professional-looking designs and images. This gave Canva a massive amount of leads it could sell images to and eventually offer a monthly service to. This ultimately gave them access and opportunity to sell to larger and larger companies.

Many More Successful Tech Companies Have Used an “Unusual” Lead Magnet

So far, I’ve shared the examples of Facebook and Canva. I did that to prove to you that successful companies really have built their business models off of a fundamental marketing strategy.

And it’s this basic – but unusual – lead magnet strategy that has brought them such incredible success.

This second marketing fundamental (aka attraction) could also help your company achieve success in 2021 if you implement it correctly.

The thing I want you to realize is that these are just TWO business models I’ve discovered after thinking of lead generation and lead magnets in an “unusual” way.

There are 10 other very successful tech companies I’ve documented that have used lead generation and lead magnets in an “unusual” way to build their company.

As I said before, many of them have built completely different business models off of this fundamental marketing strategy.

Others have simply added their own variations to the different models.

I don’t have the time to walk you through all of these companies and show you each business model or variation.

But, I do want to show you one final example. Because I want you to see one other way you can use lead magnets in an “unusual” way.

Here’s a hint of what I’ll reveal to you in my upcoming article.

How One Underdog Company’s “Unusual” Lead Magnet Enabled Them to Enter the Streaming Wars Under the Radar

In my next article, I’m going to share the incredible story of a company that created an “unusual” lead magnet.

This lead magnet enabled them to enter the stream wars in such an amazing way that in 2020 they were purchased by a well-known company for $440 million.

You’re going to like this next story because it will show you a very different way to use “unusual” lead magnets.

This article will go live in a couple of days. Stay tuned.

January 15, 2021January 15, 2021

This is a Simple Way to Increase Your Leads (VIDEO)

If you read my last article, then you realize just how critical it is to increase your leads.

Because, as I also said in that article, capturing leads is the main thing you can do today to make more future sales tomorrow.

So when you increase your sales lead, you actually increase your chance for future sales tomorrow.

There are many ways that people try to increase their leads:

They try to optimize their web design.
They try improving their headlines.
They try changing their forms.
They test different CTAs.
They analyze their data.
And they try many other things.

These are all important things that you should test. But there’s one thing that some people never try.

And the sad thing about this is that this overlooked thing is such a simple way to increase your leads.

In this short, new video, I share an unbelievable (but 100% true) story that reveals this simple way to generate leads.

And I also share some simple ways you can be implementing it right away.

This is a Simple Way to Increase Your Leads (VIDEO)

My Apologies and What’s Coming on Monday

Some of you who have been following along with this series might have noticed that this article today is not the one I told you I’d be posting.

Last night, as I was trying to get the article I planned finished, I realized I was going to need more time to perfect it.

That’s when I decided to share this new video with you instead. I know it would be a helpful concept for you and I knew it would give me the weekend to finish the article I originally planned for today.

Stay Tuned

I think when you see the article on Monday, you’ll agree that it was worth the wait. To give you a little tease of what it will be about, here’s the title of Monday’s article…

The Unusual Lead Magnet Canva Used to Build a Company Worth $60 Billion

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January 14, 2021January 14, 2021

Why the Average Marketing Conversion Rate is So Low and Why That’s Better News Than You Think

When I first heard the average marketing conversion rates were between 1-3%, I couldn’t believe it. Those numbers seemed so low they’re almost depressing.

That was until I later came across a piece of information that helped me see why those low numbers are actually good.

Let me explain.

The Percentage of Your Market That’s Ready to Buy Today

In his book, Sticky Branding, Jeremy Miller states that only approximately 3% of your market is ready to buy at any given time, the rest is not.

In other words, only three out of every one hundred in your market is ready to buy right now, today. The rest are not.

When I heard that a light bulb went off.

If only 3 out of 100 people are ready to buy today, and you end up with a 1% conversion rate, that’s actually a 33.33% conversion rate, right?

Because you converted one of the three people who were actually ready to buy today. And if you end up getting a 3% conversion rate or higher? That’s incredible! You’re doing an amazing job.

It’s only when we have the false assumption that 100% of the people out there are ready to buy today that we think a 1-3% conversion rate is bad.

Do you see now why the average conversion rate is better news than you thought it was?

But when we hear this info, there’s another very important question that we should ask. It’s this…

How can we make it so we don’t have to fight with so many competitors for those 1-3%of people who are ready to buy today? I’m glad you asked! 🙂

What You Can Do Today to Make More Future Sales Tomorrow

We’ve already established the fact that only a small percentage of people in any market is ready to buy today.

That means that the majority of people are not ready to buy today. They might be ready tomorrow, or the next day, or next month, over even months from now. But they’re not ready today.

Now think about this…

What are most businesses and companies mainly focusing all of their marketing, time, and effort on? Yep. They are focused only on those who are ready to buy today.

If you want to make more sales from those 1-3%, and not have to compete so hard with your competition, there’s only one way to do that.

You need to begin focusing on the people who will be ready tomorrow – or someday in the future, and begin attracting them today.

If you knew the actual percentage of people who will buy what you’re offering from someone – not today, but in the near future – you’d be trying to come up with every way possible to begin attracting them today.

And what’s the best way to do that? You guessed it. Lead magnets.

That’s why lead magnets and lead generation is so important. It’s because it’s your way to secure your future, today.

Practicing What I Preach

At some point in the future, I will want to offer you something to purchase that will help solve the marketing problems that you or your company are having.

Or I will want to offer you an easier way to achieve the marketing goals that you and your company have.

I don’t have anything to offer you today. And, even if I did, you might not be ready to buy it, anyway.

But, I don’t want to just hope that you will remember me when you’re ready to buy.

I don’t want to rely on the slight chance that you come back when I begin offering the solutions, answers, and help you want.

Instead, I’d like to offer you a simple trade.

Want to Make a Trade?

You give me something valuable to you: your real email address (not your junk one).

And, I’ll give you something valuable in return. What will I give you?

Here are just some of the valuable things I’ll offer you in this trade:

You can have access to classic marketing books that contain the forgotten or overlooked marketing fundamentals that’ll help to dominate in 2021 (one example is the classic book Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins).
You can have access to my 5-star book, 51 Content Marketing Hacks. (It costs $9.99 on Amazon and I’ll be taking it out of our member’s resource area at the end of this month.)
I’ll send you a member’s only email newsletter with info and insights that I don’t offer here to the public.
This year, I also plan to create more exclusive content that’s only available to members.
You will get a member’s discount on certain solutions and assistance that I offer for sale in the future.

Is that a deal?

I’m not asking for your money. I’m just asking for your email and your attention.

Then, after you begin to know, like, and trust me – and when you’re ready and I’m ready – you can see if you want to make a monetary trade with me at some later point.

If you’re interested, or would just like to learn more, then click the link under the DRCM Member’s Resource Area image below.

Stay Tuned

Stay tuned for my next article on the “unusual” lead magnet that another great tech company used to achieve success.

If you didn’t read my last article about how Facebook did this, you should…

Lead Magnets: The Fundamental Element Today’s Greatest Tech Companies Have Been Built On

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January 13, 2021February 10, 2021

Lead Magnets: The Fundamental Element Today’s Greatest Tech Companies Have Been Built On

If you stick with me, I’ll help you see lead generation and lead magnets in a way that could change your business forever. In fact, it could help your business to reach new levels in 2021.

Because, believe it or not, the greatest tech companies today have been built using lead magnets.

In order for you to understand what I mean, you first need to see lead magnets on a deeper level than most people do.

So, let me give you a new way to think of lead magnets.

My Definition of a Lead Magnet

Most of us have such a limited and basic view of lead magnets that we are missing out on how powerful they are and will be in 2021.

When most people think about lead magnets, they think about them on just the simplest level. They mainly think of a lead magnet as a PDF that attracts your ideal prospects and causes them to exchange their email address for access to it.

Don’t get me wrong.

This is a very effective way to use a lead magnet.
But you can think of that understanding of a lead magnet as the white belt version of a lead magnet compared to the black belt level.

Today, I want to give you that “black belt” level of understanding. 🙂

I don’t want you to think of lead magnets in the usual way.
I want you to think of them in the unusual way.

I think of a lead magnet at a deeper level than most people. ..

My Definition of a Lead Magnet: A lead magnet is something valuable that you offer to your ideal prospects in exchange for something of theirs that you consider valuable (usually information of some kind).

To get the most from my definition, you must understand some important things about lead magnets.

The 2 Things You Must Understand to Take Your Understanding of Lead Magnets to the Next Level

Here are the two things you must understand to use lead magnets at a “black belt” level:

You need to realize that a lead magnet can be much more than just a PDF file.
You must understand that prospects possess things of much greater value that they can exchange with you, besides just an email address.

When you truly grasp these two truths, you’ll start to realize that lead magnets are all around us.

Lead Magnets: The Fundamental Element Today’s Greatest Companies Have Been Built On

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, lead magnets are the fundamental element that the greatest tech companies of our day have harnessed to build their empires.

Yes, lead magnets are the primary method that successful companies employ to capture the attention of prospects (the 1st marketing fundamental) and attract them (the 2nd marketing fundamental).

That means that when you understand lead magnets in this deeper way, you’ll realize that the right lead magnet is worth millions, if not billions of dollars.

I’m not exaggerating.

Let me give you an example that I bet you’ve never noticed before, to prove it to you…

Facebook Was Built on This Greater Understanding of Lead Magnets

When you see lead magnets in the way I’m trying to get you to see them, you’ll realize that Facebook’s success was built on having an “unusual” lead magnet.

Once you see this and realize this is just one of many “unusual” lead magnets that great tech companies have been built on, you’re going to get more excited about lead magnets and their ability to help you attract prospects in 2021.

Facebook’s 3-Step Lead Generation Strategy That Led to Their Incredible Success

(IMPORTANT: Everything I’m about to share with you about their strategy is just from observations I’ve made as an outsider. I have no insider information.)

What was Facebook’s lead generation strategy?
Their strategy took place in three powerful, progressive stages.

Stage 1: The opportunity to connect with friends and family

The lead magnet they offered to us was not a simple PDF.
Here’s how the first stage of their strategy worked…

1. Give us your email address and we’ll connect you with friends and family.
Their marketing promise to us was simple but powerful.

Notice that Facebook didn’t just provide an initial connection with certain friends and family. They continued to provide new connection suggestions. But they didn’t stop there.

2. They allowed users to share pictures (information) in exchange for likes, comments, etc.

Think about this. Facebook was allowing its users to create content that they could share with other people on their platform (aka leads creating content for other leads).

IMPORTANT INSIGHT: All great lead generation strategies have a follow-up system that provides continual value – that way your prospect doesn’t just take your lead magnet and run.

Facebook took care of this need for a follow-up system by allowing their own leads to create value for each other (aka user-generated content).

3. Then they enabled their users to share videos (more information) in exchange for a chance to gain more likes, comments, etc.

This also offered a way for users to gain an audience and have a voice.

At each stage, they continued to offer users more functions/tools so that we could exchange much more than just our email addresses with them.

This first stage enabled Facebook to attract a massive amount of prospects. But they were just getting started.

Their next stage enabled them to set the stage to begin monetizing the whole thing. Watch what they did next…

Stage 2: The opportunity for businesses to connect with prospects and customers.

1. After attracting a significant amount of individuals with the offer of connecting with friends and family, they began to offer businesses and companies the chance to connect with prospects and customers.

2. To do that, they encouraged businesses to create their own pages where they could attract likes, comments, and followers. And they even encouraged businesses to create content.

Now think about how ingenious this was. By doing this, they accomplished two powerful things:

They now had more content on their platform. This gave the users on the platform more reasons to keep coming back to Facebook and to stay on Facebook (more user-generated content for their follow-up system).
They now had business owners who had self-identified themselves. That meant it’d be much easier to target them for the next stage – stage 3.

Stage 3: Finally, Facebook offered these business owners and companies a chance to advertise to the users (aka leads) they had gathered together on their platform.

It was at this point that Facebook began to make money on a level that they never did before.

I won’t get into this in this article, but you should also notice something important. Facebook chose to make money from the leads it had gathered in a much different way than most companies typically do.

Now don’t forget, this all began with a deeper, more “unusual” way of thinking of a lead magnet than most people do.

But even as different as it is, it’s still the same fundamental definition that I shared with you at the beginning…

“A lead magnet is something valuable that you offer to your ideal prospects in exchange for something of theirs that you consider valuable (usually information of some kind).“

Facebook’s Example Applied to My Lead Magnet Definition

Let’s take my definition and plug in Facebook’s example to help you see their whole strategy more clearly and simply:

Something valuable that you offer your ideal prospects: Facebook offered this in the form of connection with family and friends or a connection with prospects and customers.
In exchange for something of theirs that you consider valuable: Facebook got the user’s email address, but they got much more than that. They were able to build databases of users. A database that was valuable not only to Facebook but also to other companies.

What I’m NOT Suggesting

Over the years, Facebook has done some things with its user information that have gotten some people upset. (I’m not saying that they’ve actually done anything wrong. I’m just saying that some people have gotten upset with them.)

I’m NOT suggesting that you do things that make some of your leads feel uncomfortable or cause them to get upset with you.

You can actually use this basic led gen model that Facebook used without getting people upset.

In fact, many other social media platforms have used this same lead generation model effectively without seeing their users get upset.

I shared the example of Facebook with you today because I wanted you to see that this successful company really did build its business model off of a fundamental marketing strategy.

And it’s that basic lead magnet strategy that has brought them success in the past. It will bring other companies who use the same model success in 2021.

This is just ONE business model I’ve discovered after thinking of lead generation and lead magnets in an “unusual” way.

There are 11 other very successful tech companies I’ve documented that have used lead generation and lead magnets in an “unusual” way to build their company.

Many of them have built completely different business models off of this fundamental marketing strategy. And others have simply added their own variations to the different models.

If I had time to walk you through this list of companies and show you each business model or variation, you’d be amazed at how much opportunity there is for your company in 2021.

I, unfortunately, don’t have time to do that. I do want to show you another example of how you can use lead magnets in an “unusual” way.

I’ll do that in a couple of days. But first, I need to make sure you really understand why lead magnets are such a vital way to leverage the second marketing fundamental.

Stay tuned.

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January 11, 2021January 11, 2021

The 2nd Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

Last week, I began this series I’m calling The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021.

In my first article of the series, I laid an important foundation that I will continue to build on. In that article I said…

Based on some things I’ve been reading from the experts I follow, there are some interesting trends and predictions that are said to be coming our way in 2021.
These trends and predictions will be opportunities for people that know how to leverage them.
But I believe that the sweet spot in 2021 is the place where opportunity and the fundamentals meet.
You see, the people and companies that succeed the most are the ones that keep their eye out for opportunities and then take advantage of them by harnessing the fundamentals.
What fundamentals? The marketing fundamentals that have existed for at least 100 years and that will probably exist for at least another 100 years.
-Scott Aughtmon, The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021.

The First Marketing Fundamental: Attention

Last week, I also went on to reveal that the first marketing fundamental is attention. Because without attention, there is no marketing.

I then went to share ways you could capture, keep, and earn future attention.

If you missed the articles and want to read them, you can go this this page that I’ve created for the series.

The Second Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

After you have captured your prospects attention, the next thing you’re going to focus on is the second marketing fundamental: attraction.

In other words, after you capture your prospect’s attention, you’re then going to have to attract them.

It’s the whole purpose behind attention.

Without attraction, all the work you put into capturing their attention will have been wasted.

In 2021, you’re going to need to realize the unbreakable connection between prospects and the future of your business.

Let me explain what I mean in my new video below.

Without a Prospect, You Don’t Have a Future

In my latest video, I’m going to reveal the unbreakable connection between prospects and the future of your business.

And I’ll do that by showing the surprising origin of the word “prospect.”

Not only that, but you’ll also discover:

Why this unbreakable connection exists
The easy and the hard way to get prospects
And more

The Most Effective Way to Attract Your Prospects

To effectively convert prospects into a future for you business, you must take the next critical step.

You must get your prospect to exchange their contact information with you.

In other words, you must create and offer a lead magnet. I’m sad to say this but many content marketers overlook this step. And that is a fatal mistake.

You see, you don’t just want to attract them. You want to attract them in a way that enables you to continue contacting them so you can build a relationship with them.

Why? Because the majority of the people who will purchase from you will not buy from you today.

I talk more about this in my upcoming articles in this week’s series. In the meantime, I want you to know where we’re headed…

Beyond the Basics in 2021

In order for you to see success in 2021, you’re going to have go beyond the basic understanding of lead magnets and lead generation.

You’re going to have to understand them on a whole new level. That’s why you don’t want to miss tomorrow’s article.

I promise you that it will help you see lead magnets in a way you never have before.

In fact, you’re going to discover that lead magnets are the foundation of the most successful companies in existence today.

You’re not going to want to miss the example I share tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s article will be called…

The Way to See Lead Magnets That Will Change Your Business Forever

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January 8, 2021January 8, 2021

This is the Secret to Earning Your Prospect’s FUTURE Attention…Today

In my first article, The 1st Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021, I told you that you not only need to capture and keep your prospect’s attention, you also need to earn the right to their future attention.

Well, today, I’m going to show you how to exactly do that.

The Previous Articles in This Series

If you missed my other articles and want to catch up, you can do that below:

(Don’t worry. If you click on them, they won’t take you away from this page. They will open up a new window.)

Pay Attention

When we think about attention, we use a phrase that I think means more than we probably have thought about before. We use the term “pay attention.”

We’re trying to get people to pay attention to us – to our marketing, in order for us to do these other things that I’ve talked about.

Now, think about that.

When you pay for something, you are taking something that’s valuable to you (your money) and you are giving it to somebody else in exchange for that thing.

When somebody is paying attention to us, they are exchanging something that’s valuable: their attention. These days attention is a very, very valuable asset because it’s so rare.

They are paying us with their attention for something in return. They might be hoping:

To be entertained
To gain an insight
To learn something
To distract themselves
Etc.

In other words, they expect to gain something.
Now, if you pay for something, and you get nothing in return, then you feel like you got ripped off. You’re never paying for that thing again.

You’re never buying from that person, that company – or whatever/whoever, again. We need to remember that.

Return on Attention

If someone pays attention to us, that is just the first step.

If we don’t reward them, give them something in return – if they don’t have a return on attention (R.O.A), then they are not going to pay us attention again.

That’ll be the last time they ever pay attention to us.

But if reward them for giving us their attention in the first place, then they will pay it to us again and again and again.

When that happens, we don’t just gain a temporary moment of attention, but we gain an audience.

The Power of Building Audience

An audience is a powerful thing. As direct response content marketers, an audience is one of those things that we need to really understand the value of.

An audience has as much value as a list does. Now, I’m not saying we should have an audience instead of a list.

But we should realize the importance of both, making sure that we’re building up a list of prospects and an audience of prospects.

So you need to make sure that when someone pays you attention, that you reward them.

You reward them with education.
You reward them with entertainment.
You reward them with helpful answers to their questions, solutions to their problems.

If you do that, they will pay you their attention again, and you will gain an audience.

That’s the secret to earning your prospect’s future attention…today.

If you find them helpful, if you have felt like I’ve rewarded you for your attention today, then please subscribe to be notified whenever new articles go live.

Tell other people about it, share it, or embed it on your website.
Tweet about it, share it on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. I will give you more great content as a reward for your attention.

Member’s Only Content Focused on Attention

I will be sharing a special post in the member’s resource area of this site that will be focused on how you can keep your prospect’s attention after you capture it.

I’ll also point you to one of the resources that members have access to which can help you to capture attention in the digital world.

If you’re not a member, you can join for free…

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Next Week: The Second Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

Make sure to come back next week. Because next week, I’ll begin talking about the second marketing fundamental you’re going to need to succeed this year.

Subscribe so that you’ll automatically be notified when an article goes live…

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January 7, 2021January 7, 2021

How Marketers Can Capture Attention Using My ’31 Types of Content We Crave’ (Video)

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to write another article like I had hoped to do. So, instead, I’ve decided to share another video of mine with you about attention.

In this video, you’ll discover another way to capture attention (one of the three things you need to do with attention).

I’ll not only show you how to capture attention. I’ll show you how to capture your prospect’s attention, even if you don’t know a lot about them.

If you missed my previous articles (and one video), you can see them at the links below:

(Don’t worry. If you click on them, they won’t take you away from this page. They will open up a new window.)

We Pay Attention to What We Crave

Without knowing you personally, there are not a lot of things that I can predict will grab your attention every time – except for one thing: the thing you crave.

Because I know that if it’s something you crave, then you’re going to have your reticular activating system on “high alert” and on the lookout for that thing.

That means that if you want your marketing to capture your prospect’s attention, then all you have to do is figure out what they crave.

Now I CAN’T tell you what your prospect specifically craves, but I CAN tell you what they crave at a universal level.

And it has everything to do with what I call “content we crave.”

Watch my video below to learn about the “31 Types of Content We Crave” and how you can use them in your marketing to grab attention…

After you watch my video, you can download or print out my two “content we crave” infographics. You can then use them as your cheat sheets whenever you want to create copy or content that has a higher chance of capturing your prospect’s attention.

Go here to see my infographics: The 31 Types of Content We Crave and How to Use Them to Create Engaging Content (INFOGRAPHICS & PREVIEW VIDEO)

January 6, 2021January 6, 2021

The Secret of the Reticular Activating System and How to Capture Attention (VIDEO)

The Secret to Using the Reticular Activating System to Capture Your Prospects Attention HEADER Small

In case this is your first time here, you need to know something. This week, I started a series that I’m calling The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021.

You can see the first two articles at the links below:

(Don’t worry. If you click on them, they won’t take you away from this page. They will open up a new window.)

Anyway, today, you’re in luck. I have a treat for you.

I want to share a video with you today that will teach you something you’ve probably never heard anyone teach about the first marketing fundamental (aka Attention).

I call it… The Secret of the Reticular Activating System and How to Capture Attention.

(NOTE: This is a repost of a previous article and video I did back on May 11, 2019. I’m posting it here, again, because it’s a message that is just as important today as it was then.)

The Brain’s Reticular Activating System: Your Friend or Foe

You might not realize this but your brain is equipped with something that’s called the Reticular Activating System.

It’s the part of your brain that determines what you notice or pay attention to.

And that’s why content marketers and direct response marketers should learn the secrets of tapping into it.

If you figure out how to harness its power, it will be your friend and your copy and content will be welcomed in.

If you don’t figure out how to harness its power, it will be your foe and your copy and content will be turned away every time.

Watch my video to discover how you can use the reticular activating system to capture your prospects’ attention…

A Confession About This Video

I need to confess something. I started a YouTube channel 21 months ago intending to create content regularly for it. This video is one of a series of videos that I created during that time.

I created them but I didn’t really get a chance to promote them very much.

A major move from CA to ID stalled out that plan. Don’t get me wrong. That move has been such a great choice! But it did stall out my plan to create videos.

Well, I think in 2021 that it’s time for me to get back to that plan.

In this new year, I plan to get back to posting videos.
I’ll also be putting on some webinars (free and paid).
I also will be creating exclusive video content for the member’s area.

It’s going to be content that you’ll find interesting, entertaining, and, most of all, helpful for you personally, your company, and/or your career.

If you want to know when more videos go live, then you should do two things:

Subscribe to Direct Response Content Marketing YouTube channel.
Click here to subscribe and be automatically notified when it and other articles go live.

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January 5, 2021January 5, 2021

The 1st Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

Yesterday, in my first article in this series, I told you that:

I believe the sweet spot in 2021 is the place where opportunity and the fundamentals meet.
The people and companies that succeed the most are the ones that keep their eye out for opportunities and then take advantage of them by harnessing the fundamentals.

If you missed that article, you can read it here: The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021.

Today, I’m going to reveal the first marketing fundamental that you will need to succeed in 2021.

The 1st Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

The first marketing fundamental you need is attention. Why is attention the first marketing fundamental? Because without attention, there is no marketing.

In other words, you, your company, your business, your organization, or your non-profit will have a very hard time succeeding in 2021 without attention.

If we don’t capture people’s attention:

We can never educate them.
We can never build a relationship with them.
We can never capture leads.
We can never make offers to them.
We can never gain customers, clients, patients, donors, etc.

It all starts with attention.

Don’t believe me?

Ok. What do you plan on focusing on this year?

SEO?
Online or offline ads?
Your website?
Your emails?
Video?
Social media?

It all starts with all attention! You can’t be effective at any of these things if you don’t first capture your prospect’s attention.

Getting Attention Will Matter More Than Ever in 2021

Getting attention has always been a needed and fundamental first step.
And, I don’t think I need to convince you of this fact, it will matter more than ever in 2021.

With the continual onslaught of new content online, new social media platforms, the battle of streaming services, etc., it’s not going to get any easier to get the attention of the people you’re trying to reach.

The Right Attention vs The Wrong Attention

This goes without being said. But it’s not just any old attention that’s going to matter in 2021.

The key is going to be capturing the right prospect’s attention. If you capture the wrong prospect’s attention, you’ll waste a lot of time and money in 2021.

In fact, the better you can become at getting the right peoples’ attention, the more effective your marketing will be, the less money and time you’ll waste, and the more success you will experience this year.

The Three Things You’re Going to Need to Do with Attention in Order to Succeed in 2021

When it comes to attention, you’re going to need to master three things things:

1. You’re going to have to capture their attention.
This is the first step when it comes to attention. And it’s the one step that most people think of when they think of the need for attention.

It’s definitely where you must start with attention, but it can’t be where you stop. Because if you do stop there, even capturing the attention of the right prospects won’t be beneficial to you or your prospects.

2. You’re going to need to keep their attention.
This is the second step you must take with attention. Once you first gain or capture attention, you then need to figure out how to keep that attention long enough to get your message across.

This is the step that will help all of the work you’re currently doing to produce more results, whether that’s leads or sales.

3. You must earn the right to their future attention.
This third step is the step that only a small minority of people, companies, and organizations take. But it’s the step you will want to take because it will determine how easy it will be for you to capture attention in the future.

This will help your prospects to get to know, like, and trust you. If they don’t know, like, and trust you, they’ll never take any further steps along with you.

They’ll never raise their hands and ask for more info. They’ll never sign-up for trials. They’ll never share your content or your company with their friends and followers.

And they’ll definitely never buy from you.

We’re Just Getting Started

With this article, I just wanted to get you started thinking about attention. (I wanted to get your attention about attention. 🙂 )

In my upcoming articles, I’m going to look more closely at this topic of attention.

I’m going to share:

Some ways to capture attention
Some ways to keep attention
Some ways you earn future attention

And that’s just the first marketing fundamental that you’ll need to harness to succeed in 2021. I still have 11 more fundamentals that I want to reveal to you.

My next article in this series will go live on Thursday, January 7th.
Click here to subscribe and be automatically notified when it and other articles go live.

P.S. I’ll be revealing additional information and insights for each of the 12 marketing fundamentals in our DRCM Member’s Resource Area.

It’s free to join…

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January 4, 2021January 3, 2021

The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021

“Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.”
– Jim Rohn

Did you catch what Jim Rohn said?

Success is the NATURAL consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.

If you apply the fundamentals, success is a natural consequence.

Keep that in mind because this will be an important truth in just a few minutes.

Marketing Predictions for 2021 and Your Sweet Spot

road 5799603 1920 — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Based on some things I’ve been reading from the experts I follow, there are some interesting trends and predictions that are said to be coming our way in 2021.

These trends and predictions will be opportunities for people that know how to leverage them.

But I believe that the sweet spot in 2021 is the place where opportunity and the fundamentals meet.

You see, the people and companies that succeed the most are the ones that keep their eye out for opportunities and then take advantage of them by harnessing the fundamentals.

What fundamentals? The marketing fundamentals that have existed for at least 100 years and that will probably exist for at least another 100 years.

You might think this can’t possibly be true.
It sounds too simplistic to think that the marketing fundamentals really matter in 2021.

Oh really? Think about this…

(Article continues below…)

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(Continue reading below…)

The Fundamentals That Are All Around Us

The fundamentals are the key to success in many different areas of life.

They’ve mattered in the past and they’ll still matter in 2021.
Let me give you some quick examples.

The Army

What do they call the key training that every soldier goes through? Basic Training.

It presents the same key problems and their common solutions to each new recruit.

That means that even the complexity of warfare can be broken down into common problems and common solutions.

Understanding and mastering these common problems and common solutions (the fundamentals) provides the key to winning the battle.

But this isn’t just true about warfare.

Martial Arts

When I took martial arts, there were important things you had to learn at the beginning of your training.

What were these important things? The basics, the fundamentals!

We learned common attacks (problems) and common defenses (solutions).

But these important things weren’t just things you had to learn at the beginning of your training.

They were things we practiced at the beginning of every class.

The most complicated and cool looking moves were really just the fundamentals combined in a new way. (This isn’t just true about martial arts. It’s also true about marketing.)

Let me give you one more example.

Football

What does every football player learn and focus on regularly during their practices?

The basics! They learn the common offense and common defense plays.

The thing I want you to understand is that in just about every basic arena and field in life there are fundamentals.

And it’s when people harness these fundamentals to take advantage of the opportunities that they win, succeed, and conquer.

You might be thinking, “But what about the marketing fundamentals? Do they still apply and matter in 2021?”

The major companies that we all admire sure seem to think so.

The Major Tech and Entertainment Companies and the Intersection of Opportunities and Fundamentals

eye 1553789 1920 — Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

You might not have realized it but Facebook, LinkedIn, Spotify, Disney+, and many others have harnessed these marketing fundamentals to take advantage of opportunities and ultimately succeed.

That’s why when others will be sharing about the new opportunities in 2021, I’ll be sharing with you about the 12 marketing fundamentals that you should harness, so you can seize the opportunities coming your way in 2021.

I’ll be sharing the first 2-3 marketing fundamentals with you this week.

I’ll reveal the first one in tomorrow’s article.

P.S. I’ll be revealing additional information and insights for each of the 12 marketing fundamentals in our DRCM Member’s Resource Area.

It’s free to join…

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December 21, 2020December 21, 2020

This is the Very First Business Owner to Dress Up as Santa

I used to love going to get my picture taken with Santa when I was a little kid.

But have you ever wondered how the tradition of kids getting pictures with Santa got started? Or have you ever wondered who was the first person to do this?

Well, you’re about to find out.

James Edgar was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1843.

He arrived in Brockton, Massachusetts in 1878 and opened up a dry goods store there on Main Street.

It All Started with an Idea to Drum Up More Business

He would have lived a life of obscurity except for one thing: an idea he had one Christmas in 1890.

You see, he wanted to bring in more business during the Christmas season and so he came up with the idea to dress up as Santa Claus in his store.

James Edgar clown — Edgar dressed as a clown via Wikipedia

The crowds that showed up surprised Edgar. Within days, children began flocking to his store.

In fact, the news spread so far that kids began to show up from as far as Boston and Providence.

He discovered that they had come by train just to see Santa.

Because of this, Edgar is credited as the first business owner to dress up as Santa.

And malls and department stores around the U.S. carried on this tradition ever since.

Entering the Conversation in Your Prospect’s Minds

The brilliant thing about Edgar’s idea was that he tapped into the conversation that was already going on in many of his prospect’s and customer’s minds (conversations about Christmas and Santa) and figured out a way to enter that conversation.

Robert Collier famously said it this….

“You want to enter a conversation that’s already existing in your prospect’s minds.”
-Robert Collier

With so much going on nowadays and so many distractions, any way you can break through the static is a HUGE benefit for you.

Doing this is like giving you, your product, or service a little “hook” to hang on in someone’s mind.

It’s the power of association.

It’s time for you to associate your business with what is already on the minds of your prospects and customers. The question is: How will you do that?

(Example: I am doing that with this article.)

Maybe He Really WAS Santa?

One last thing…

Not only was Edgar a smart businessperson, but he also was extremely generous.

According to Elaine Allegrini...

“Edgar shared his good fortune, paying for children’s medical care, offering jobs to youths in need. and passing out pennies to children who came to his store.”

Isn’t that awesome?

Maybe he was the real Santa in disguise as a store owner? 🙂

Source: James Edgar (wikipedia) | Enterprisenews.com | Photo by Rochelle, just rochelle

June 23, 2020June 23, 2020

Change the Story You Tell Yourself About Marketing And Your Marketing Results Will Begin to Change Forever

Change the Story You Tell Yourself About Marketing And Your Marketing and Its Results Will Change Forever

In a blog post on his site, best-selling author Michael Hyatt tells a story that I want to hear.

I want you to hear it because it reveals a way that I believe you can use to change the results that you’re experiencing in your marketing and therefore, your company.

Let me share Michael’s story and then I will explain how it applies to marketing.

michael fireplace1 — Michael Hyatt, author of “**Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World**” and other books

Change Your Story, Change Your Life

Listen to Michael Hyatt’s story in his own words…

“When I was twenty-nine years old, I became vice president of marketing for Thomas Nelson. It was a huge step up in my career.
“At the time, I thought I had arrived at the pinnacle of success. But I was in over my head. Or at least that’s the way it felt. I was just waiting for other people to come to the same conclusion.
“I struggled constantly with anxiety and fear—anxiety was the daytime version; fear was the nighttime version. This manifest itself in my body in two embarrassing ways:

“First, I sweat profusely.
Second, my hands were always cold—ice cold.
“Before attending important meetings, I would wear two t-shirts, hoping that I wouldn’t sweat through both. I strategically selected my clothing, based on which colors would show the least amount of perspiration.

“I would also step into the bathroom right before the meeting began, and frantically run hot water over my hands.

“I would then dry them vigorously, praying that they would warm up. I dreaded having to shake hands with anyone.

“At some point, I realized that the problem was not in my body, but in my head. I was telling myself a bad story… Mine went like this:

‘You are too young for this job. Worse, you don’t have the experience. Who do you think you are fooling? It’s just a matter of time before everyone in the company sees it. When that happens, you will be out on the street—right where you should have been all along.’
“I would never say this out loud, of course. It was just the sound-track that was playing inside my head.

“Things didn’t change until I became aware of the story and took control of the narrative. I started telling myself a different story.

“I think almost every problem we experience can be traced back to the stories we tell ourselves.

“There may be a good reason for these stories, but in the end they produce bad outcomes. It comes down to this: Change your story, change your life.
“Change Your Story, Change Your Life“ – Blog post from Michael Hyatt

The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Marketing

book 1149031 1920 1 — Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Michael’s story is about changing your life, and I’d encourage you to read the rest of his post to discover Michael’s “five lessons to change the narrative in your head” when you’re done with this post.

But today, I want to talk to you about how the story we tell ourselves about marketing impacts: how we think about marketing, how we feel about marketing, and, worst of all, what we can accomplish with our marketing or marketing strategy.

You see, the stories we tell ourselves about what marketing is, what it can accomplish, how to market effectively will ultimately determine whether our marketing is effective or not.

Examples of Negative Stories About
Marketing That Non-Marketers Tell Themselves

Marketing doesn’t work. If you tell yourself this story about marketing, you won’t try marketing. Or you’ll try it halfheartedly and, therefore, you’ll continue believing this story.
Marketing is magical and mysterious. If you tell yourself this story about marketing, then you’ll only believe that marketing can be done by the gurus and the wizards. You’ll think that a mere mortal like you can never do it effectively.
Marketing is complicated and difficult. If you tell yourself this story about marketing, then you will be intimidated and overwhelmed by it. You’ll be stressed and worried every time you try any marketing.
Marketing is sleazy and manipulative. If you tell yourself this story, about marketing, then you’re going to feel guilty every time you do marketing of any kind. You will be apprehensive about trying to encourage anyone to buy whatever it is that you’re offering.
Marketing is expensive. If you tell yourself this story about marketing, then you’re going to never see the ROI that marketing can bring you. You’re only going to see it as an expense. And that’s all you’re going to look for.
Marketing can solve all of your problems. If you tell yourself this story about marketing, then you’re going to be sadly disappointed. Because there are some problems that marketing can’t solve.

The problem with all of the above stories is that none of them are really true. They’re all marketing fairy tales.

The Truth About Marketing

Marketing does work if it’s done effectively. In fact, as I used to tell my marketing students at UC Berkeley Extension, you might be using marketing and not even realize it.
Marketing isn’t magical and doesn’t need to be mysterious. It is based on proven and tested principles that have bee around for over 100 years. (You can learn these principles on this site and in our member’s area.
Marketing isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult. (If you’d like a free consultation to see if we should work together to simplify your marketing, then contact me.)
If marketing had to be sleazy and manipulative in order to work, I wouldn’t be involved in it. You don’t believe anyone who tells you it has to be that way.
Marketing can be expensive, but there are plenty of ways to use it on a tight budget. If you market correctly, it will produce enough ROI to make it cost-effective for you.
Marketing can’t solve all of your problems. If your product or service is not good, or if you’re trying to sell them to the wrong prospects, then no marketing will ever help you.

You will never be able to market effectively, if the stories that you’re telling yourself about marketing are just fairy tales.

Examples of Limiting Stories About Marketing That Marketers Tell Themselves

Marketers aren’t immune to having problems that stem from the stories they tell themselves about marketing. But instead of telling themselves false stories, they tell themselves limiting stories.

Here are some of the limiting stories that marketers tell themselves about marketing:

Marketing is all about analytics.
Marketing is all about creating desire.
Marketing is brand awareness.
Marketing is a numbers game.

The problem with the stories on the above list is that some are only partially true and others are only based on one facet of marketing.

None of the above things are really what marketing really is at its core.

If the stories that you tell yourself about marketing are only partially true, or based on only one facet of marketing, then you will never be able to accomplish all that’s possible with your marketing.

The Only Solution is to Listen to Michael

The only way for non-marketers to be able to market effectively and the only way for marketers to accomplish more of what’s possible with their marketing is by doing what Michael Hyatt said: Change your story.

About two years ago, I came up with a different analogy for marketing than one I’ve ever thought of before.

That analogy changed the story that I had been telling myself about marketing for almost two decades.

If you’re curious, I came up with it after reading something in a book by an economist. (I never read these types of books.)

Anyway, because I was getting ready to teach my first marketing class for UC Berkeley Extension, I decided to come up with my own personal definition of marketing based on this analogy.

I think that this analogy and the personal definition for marketing that I’ve come up with could rewrite the story that you’ve been telling yourself about marketing.

Discover a Different Way to Think About Marketing

Most people don’t really know what marketing is.

They think it’s advertising, but it’s not. Advertising is a part of marketing, but marketing is more than advertising.

That’s why people have such a difficult time trying to market effectively.
How can you do something effectively, if you don’t know what it really is?

Click here to learn how to get a copy of my“A Different Way to Think of Marketing” recordings for a low price.

P.S. Make sure you check out Michael Hyatt’s website. He has great info on there about how to “win at work and succeed at life.”

An Unexpected Goal

George Washington Carver’s Secret to Being Unforgettable

The 10th Marketing Fundamental

Living in a Right-Sided World

The Short-Order Cook and the Myth of Multitasking

Information Neglect

How to Create Content That Doesn’t Get Ignored

Three Ways to Create “Rewarding Content” That Your Prospects Will Want to Consume

A Daily Bouquet of Love

The 10th Marketing Fundamental

Get Emailed Whenever a New Article Goes Live

A Tragedy Spawns History’s Greatest Memory Technique

It’s Not Personal

Moonwalking with Einstein

The Good News for Content Marketers

The Legend of the Extraordinarily Ordinary Tea

The Hidden Lesson

How This Lesson Can Help You to Make Your Ordinary Content or Copy Feel Extraordinary

How I Used His Method in This Article

Would You or Your Team Like to Learn How to Create Content Like This?

Get Emailed Whenever a New Article Goes Live

The Universal Theory of the Ancient World

The 7th Marketing Fundamental

The 11 Elements Behind All Powerful Content or Copy

In My Upcoming Articles, We’ll Go Deeper

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Some Interesting Facts About Average Word Usage

The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021

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The First 6 Marketing Fundamentals:

5 Important Facts to Understand About the 7th Marketing Fundamental

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Famous Indy Race Car Driver’s Surprising Success Secret

Bill’s Advice Applies to Business Success Too

Why I Stopped Posting for a Few Weeks

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The First 6 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021 – Text Version

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3 Important Lessons from McDonald’s on How to Create Attractive Offers

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The Dream That Led to the Discovery of the Periodic Table

What the Periodic Table Enables Chemistry Students to Do

Use These 9 Elements to Create a Powerful Offer

Two Final Thoughts About These Elements of a Powerful Offer

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The First 5 Marketing Fundamentals:

The 6th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021

What Is an Offer?

How Avon Was Accidentally Started

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The Amazing Discovery

Dawn/Procter & Gamble’s Surprising Response

The Decision That Changed Everything

3 Lessons on Targeting Your “Who” from Dawn Dish Soap

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The Attention-Getting Secrets Marketers Can Learn from HGTV

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In 1958, A Marketing Legend Revealed These Secrets to Creating Powerful Headlines

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The Story of a Man Named Harry

How Harry Competed With The Discount Stores

Harry’s Surprising Response

Harry’s Powerful USP

6 Brand Lessons From Harry That Can Help You Succeed

1. Offer a powerful guarantee.

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